


the ghost of you, it keeps me awake.

by leothequeenn



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: A bit of Youtuber Ethan, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, Fem!Ethan, Fluff, I forgot to add that, LUKE IS AN AUTHOR, Luke leaves for California for five years, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sex, Youtuber Silena, but she's more into photography lmao, fem ethan reminds me of katniss, idk why though, lol, so they aren't demigods dangit :(, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 18:51:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 46,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5509145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leothequeenn/pseuds/leothequeenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Could she understand? Yes. Was she happy? No.</p><p>But she took down pictures, deleted pictures from his phone, blocked his social media, and finally deleted his number off of her fucking phone because she didn’t want to see him. Didn’t want to hear him, didn’t want to talk to him, didn’t want to remember him. Because she was <i>angry</i>.</p><p>or</p><p>the fic where Luke leaves New York for California, without knowing that Ethan had a little secret back in the city that never sleeps. Five years later, it seems like the Gods want to ruin Ethan's life, and make it much more difficult than it should ever be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. [prologue] - and when we've had our very last kiss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sincerelyhecate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sincerelyhecate/gifts).



> ha, do you see that summary? so bad.
> 
> anyway, this is for the awesome sincerelyhecate and all the other lukethans out there (*coughcough* _klaus_ *coughcough*). i had this idea in my head and i had to write it -- although it started out much different than what it actually is going to be. ✿

Ethan was dreaming.

She always knew she was dreaming. She knew it, only because that stupid blond was there as if to haunt her with the thought of _he’s not coming back_. He would never come back and that was what made these dreams nightmares.

Ethan was standing somewhere, in the dark, and she could feel a metal railing in her grip. Okay, so she was standing on a balcony, probably like the one at _his_ old apartment. She had been on the balcony plenty of times, but the one time that haunted her was whenever he told her that it wasn’t going to work, they weren’t going to work, and he was leaving.

Only, in this dream (nightmare?) instead of telling her he was leaving, he was saying that he didn’t want to leave and wanted her. Ethan honestly didn’t believe it -- even her dream-self didn’t believe it, but there he was in her dream, apologizing and holding her close and just saying that he was scared and Ethan didn’t want to hear it, but it was hard with her eye on his blue ones and she _hated_ him for coming back into her life. Even if it wasn’t real life. He wasn’t coming back. He lived in California and that was all the way across the country and he just wasn’t _coming back_. And Ethan didn’t really know how to feel about that.

This dream wasn’t the _only_ dream, obviously, there had been many more before this and probably more to come but they all varied a bit in the way that he appeared and came to her -- some took place in Silena’s house or in stores or on a balcony that was for an apartment that she didn’t own or know. There were ones where they were on his balcony, for his old apartment, and that was whenever she felt the safest, even in the dream because she was so used to the scene.

Some dreams, he looked different -- in some he had brown hair and that blond scruff, and it was a bit awkward since she was so used to his blond hair, his blond everything. Sometimes, his scar would look more jagged and whiter, and sometimes he would have gold eyes and that didn’t really scare her. What scared her was just _seeing_ him.

But, unfortunately, they were all the same in the message, that he, Luke Castellan, was in New York again, after five years of nothingness between them (and the six months of sex for whenever he was in New York, _that_ was a frequent thing they had going on). But those dreams she had about him were supposed to prepare her, if she could actually use the information and trust it if she were to take anything out of them. But regardless, she didn’t feel ready. If she were to see his face, she really wouldn’t know what to do. She thought dreams or nightmares were supposed to feel good about yourself and prepare yourself but she just felt as useless as she did five years ago, whenever he left.

Of course, there was a slim chance that he might actually would be in New York and she was just a fucking psychic or something -- but Ethan knew it might only be for the holidays nearing and things -- but the last time she saw him she was on his apartment balcony and he was telling her to break off their little fling because he was moving to California for his job opportunity. That was all. There wasn’t any ‘let’s stay together’ or even a wild, ‘move with me?’ statement that he said. Just that they weren’t working, that they should stop what they were doing and that he was moving to the West Coast to work. To write.

Luke always wanted to be a writer, wanted to write books and tell stories and just say his thoughts out on paper, and Ethan bitterly guessed that she wasn’t as important as a stupid publishing company that could be equally offered in New York.

Most of her dreams about this, though, happened four years back and they were just about her bashing herself as she tortured herself with replays of this. Of course, after Roka came around, then it stopped because she had other things to focus on, but still. She still hated herself for not making any objection. How could she though?

She _could_ understand not being important enough because she just assumed that she wasn’t really anything to him in the first place, they were only just having sex and they weren’t supposed to get attached to each other (even if he did take her virginity the first time they did it -- Ethan’s mother still has a grudge against that whenever she told her a month and a half later) because they were basically strangers. Acquaintances. People who met at Silena Beauregard’s party one night and decided to go at it because Ethan was tired of being ‘pure’ and Luke was just tired of _everything else_.

And, _one time_ turned into phone calls, invites to go over and ‘hang out’ even though Ethan certainly figured out that ‘hanging out’ wasn’t what he meant at all but she was excited because Luke was nice to her and wrote little short stories that he wanted to get published and let her read them. They were good to each other. Though, she knew that it was it. That was it. There wasn’t going to be anything more, anything like she hoped. It was like she knew he was going to take off somewhere and leave her by herself. Ethan hadn’t ever been in a relationship before, since she never really had time for that (it was just school and her parents and she didn’t have time and she didn’t want to have time) and she just figured it would bloom into something more but six months later -- a half of a fucking _year_ \-- and he just left with a few words.

They weren’t even the words that Ethan wanted to remember him by.

And Ethan was fine with that. Had to be fine with that. She was the one who left him with the feeling of their very last kiss on the fucking balcony and she was _fine_ with that. She wasn’t fine with him leaving, but she couldn’t blame them because they were basically hook-ups and one night stands strung together for six months. She knew he wasn’t going to stay in New York. So she couldn’t stay angry at him but she fucking _was_ because the night before he left they had done their usual thing there was _trust_ there and Ethan was certain that it was love and she couldn’t fucking believe he had the audacity to pack up and leave the _next day._  Of course, again, she couldn’t stop him and couldn’t blame him because he got the call the next day, so it wasn’t like he knew beforehand.

Could she understand? Yes. Was she happy? No.

So she had deleted everything about him, except for his stupid pictures he had posted on her Instagram because he couldn’t delete those. Not yet.

But she took down pictures, deleted pictures from her phone, blocked his social media, and finally deleted his number off of her fucking phone because she didn’t want to see him. Didn’t want to hear him, didn’t want to talk to him, didn’t want to remember him.

Because she was _angry_.

She didn’t even go see him off at the airport, which was Silena wanted her to do, which Luke wanted her to do, but she just couldn’t because there was so much that Ethan felt was unsaid but she couldn’t bring herself to just fucking say them before he left. She couldn’t bring herself to say words to him that would bring him down, make him feel bad about himself. She found no point, because no matter what, she’d be stuck with them, too.

And, she sat at home instead. And waited. She studied. She worked. She talked with her mother. Talked with Silena. Tried not to think about Luke but the balcony scene was playing over in her head -- and it wasn’t even a _good, cheesy_ balcony scene like that stupid Shakespeare play she had to memorize in sophomore year whenever everyone literally died in the entire fucking play. It was a bad balcony scene and it haunted Ethan because now, she could think of words to say, she could force Luke to give her more time to say what she wanted, instead of just leaving her out in the cold, January night.

She had problems. With the lack of period cramps coming over five days, whenever she was _supposed_ to have it, she didn’t want to know. Didn’t want _that_ to be happening to her. Where was her television show whenever she needed it? One that would depict Luke as the bad boyfriend who just left for a good reason and where was that other boy best friend that would become her love interest?

(Honestly, though, that was the least of her worries; she didn’t need another boy toy to come around and fuck with her emotions, not with her problems happening.)

Out of all people, Silena Beauregard was there whenever Ethan took the courage and bought those stupid tests. Silena, at that time, was three months pregnant, and Ethan couldn’t help but wonder if that’s what happened to her missed period and before she knew it it came back positive. Together, they found out the news. Luke wasn’t there. Silena probably wanted to tell Luke, since she knew what him and Ethan were doing and there was one look from the half-blind girl and she knew not to. Honestly, she had no idea what would happen if he _did_ know.

And of course, Ethan trusted Silena more than ever because they were friends, they were best friends and she didn’t really have anyone else like that. She wouldn’t tell. Not even how much she wanted to and how much she believed in rom-coms and romantic stories that she read or watched or listened to, because Ethan didn’t want him involved. He didn’t want to be involved with her, she wasn’t gonna have him be involved with it.

And Ethan cried and screamed up at the night sky until her throat gave out. And she wanted to be dreaming. But she knew that she wasn’t. Luke wasn’t coming back, and she was pregnant. That was just how it went down. And it fucking sucked.

When she told her mother, Nemesis Nakamura actually _cried_. Her father didn’t glare at her like she could do better. For once, the relief of telling people, like her parents, washed over her. Her father was about to question something, but her mother looked over at him like he knew better, and suddenly that relief to tell them and them being supportive was gone.

She knew what they were talking about.

No Luke.

And it pissed Ethan off, because she was fine and she could handle this on her own.


	2. [1] to say sorry.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I had a dream about him again.” Ethan admitted as she cut with the side of her fork.  
> “You-know-who? Again?”  
> “Could you not say it like that?” she asked. “It makes him sound like, Voldemort or something.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here is chapter one, finally being uploaded! I actually have six more chapters completely done and I'm working on the eighth chapter at the moment, but I decided to gradually upload them as time goes on. I want to have this done as soon as possible but I've been busy with Christmas and things and so I didn't get to upload yesterday or the day before that. I got a new computer and a new printer, so that's rad af!  
> Hope you all have/had a happy holidays!! ♥

7 AM and Ethan was awake, and something -- or someone, and she was pretty sure who -- was tugging at her hand that was hanging off of the edge of the bed. Okay, so maybe she was _half_ -awake, and her alarm clock is still going off, but she managed to use her other hand to stop the screaming clock and become fully awake. She opened her brown eye and saw Roka, standing there with a grin on his face, his black hair all tangled and sticking up.

“Momma!” Roka giggled and climbed up onto the bed and Ethan had to help the five-year-old boy up, and he cuddled with her for a second before exclaiming, “Auntie Silena made pancakes! We gotta go eat some, momma!”

Ethan rolled her eye at how _energetic_ this child was, _her_ child was, because honestly, she didn’t know where he got it from. Or maybe, that was just because he was a kid and she was comparing his energy to how much energy Luke had in the mornings (none, he would sleep in until close to noon from what she could remember, what with all the homework and lack of sleep he already got) and she nodded her head to get him to stop jumping around and clapping his hands. “How you have this much energy, I don’t know. When did you wake up?” The sun was brightly shining through the open curtains, and she was sure that Silena had opened them earlier to try and make the sunny December morning feel warmer than what it was going to be.

He shrugged, and the girl nodded. Of course. She’ll have to ask Silena what time this kid woke her up and asked for pancakes. Ethan also thought it was cute how he called her Auntie, so she’ll have to tell her that too.

Roka hopped off the bed and Ethan shuffled under the covers, trying to keep the warmth the big, puffy black comforter gave before getting out of bed, noticing how she was still in the guest room (temporarily her room at the moment). Silena’s guest room was a cute black, white and gold room, with flowers on the nightstands that reminded her of springtime even though most of the flowers in New York were dead underneath the snow at the moment. She also saw that around her bed and underneath the curtains there were white Christmas lights strung. It really didn’t surprise her, Silena was good at interior decorating and just decorating anything at all, and all that DIY stuff that Ethan had no idea how to do. She was good at decorating apartments, houses, things like that and it drove Ethan up a wall because she always needed help decorating, but that just reminded her of how today was the big day. The big day for checking out the apartment of her dreams, because while Ethan loved Silena, she couldn’t stand mooching off of her. It just wasn’t her thing.

Ethan picked Roka up, holding him in her arms as she walked down the stairs, and she could feel him grabbing at her braid, which was swinging back and forth while she walked. Roka has a thing for hair. Her hair, Silena’s hair, even Silena’s daughter’s hair. It didn’t even matter who it was, if it was long enough, he would try and grab it. Even Beckendorf’s dreadlocks. If it was in his reach and it moved, he would grab it. Hair, earrings, anything.

“Morning, Silena,” Ethan said and spotted the other black-haired girl sitting at the kitchen table, which had cute little snowman decorations and tea lights as the centerpiece. Silena grinned, and was currently half-watching her daughter, Chere, play with a doll, and half-skimming over a book in her hand.

“Morning, lovely.” Silena grinned, and Ethan sat Roka down in a chair and went to go get him some pancakes from the stove. “They’re gingerbread pancakes,” the other girl explained. That’s another thing about Silena. She learned how to cook from her dad. Ethan’s dad only gave her inherited brains and the power to get what she wanted. From her mom, Silena got decorating skills and she was able to make a job out of it. From Ethan’s mom, she only got the ability to sport revenge and to argue. Silena got life skills, Ethan got life skills she needed to be a lawyer or a scientist. And honestly, everything else Ethan had to learn by herself. She had to learn Luke by herself, and look where that got her.

Ethan nodded, clearly not letting Silena and her perfection get to her because she loved Silena. “Someone loves gingerbread around this time,” she said to Roka, who giggled in his chair and stood, clapping his hands. Ethan only got two pancakes and a bit of that vanilla icing that she was sure the other girl just whipped up, and she got Roka some milk before sitting across from Silena at the table. She began to work on Roka’s pancake, beginning to cut the pancake up into strips after she poured some icing down on a spare plate for him.

“I had a dream about him again.” Ethan admitted as she cut with the side of her fork. Silena looked at her and gasped a little, and Ethan finally realized she had on fake lashes already. It was seven o’clock. And Silena already had fake-lashes on.

But Ethan couldn’t blame her, that was just how Silena was. Beauty guru was another thing she got from her mother and it was another reason why she had close to five million subscribers on Youtube. She was just a funny, cute person to be around and Ethan liked her. Especially with Chere and her extra-hot husband, she was easy to like. No pun intended about the extra hot husband, though, Beckendorf was a construction worker and things got a little hot while building with metals.

“You-know-who? Again?”

Ethan huffed. “Could you not say it like that?” she asked as she put a few pieces of cut up strips of pancake on Roka’s plate, before working on her own and cutting them up into small pieces. That was just how she always cut hers up. “It makes him sound like, Voldemort or something.” It was a moment before she muttered out, “these dreams keep making me feel like Taylor Swift in the song Red or something.”

Silena giggled, “well sorry for comparing him to the Dark Lord. And there’s nothing wrong with Taylor.” Before she could continue, Ethan heard the other girl’s husband walking down the stairs, and he came into the kitchen.

“Pancakes?” Beckendorf asked and Ethan grinned up at him.

“Gingerbread ones. I didn’t choose the menu.” The black-haired girl said and continued to cut up the pancake on her plate. Beckendorf grinned back at her and leaned over, kissing Silena on the lips before kissing his own daughter and Ethan felt a twinge of jealousy as she put a piece of pancake in her mouth. Beckendorf waved at Roka and he waved back frantically before the man walked out to go to work, locking the door behind him.

“Anyway,” Ethan continued, as if to feel somewhat better about dream-Luke, or maybe she was just going crazy and needed to tell someone about it, “he said that he was sorry, and he was here but I don’t quite know where _we_ were. We were on a railing, or a balcony of an apartment but it wasn’t his.”

Silena arched an eyebrow and put down her book to take a look at the girl across from her. “And, how do you feel about that?”

“You’re sounding like my mother,” Ethan joked, but seriously, she didn’t know how she felt about the dreams. She’s had too many, and she had just gotten used to them occurring. She glanced over at Roka, who was eating the pancakes like a certain Percy Jackson would with blue ones (she wasn’t quite sure how she knew that, but she had a feeling it was from Silena) and she couldn’t help but smile at her black-haired boy, who currently needed his hair to be combed and cut. He was starting to look like di Angelo. Whatever. She’ll cut it at a later time, she needed to finish her breakfast and hurry up. She glanced back over at Silena, who was back into her book, and the black-haired girl tipped her head a bit to the side to read what she was reading.

Mindlessly, Silena muttered out, “he’s in California, isn’t he? So, he couldn’t be here.”

Seeing the title, _To Say Sorry_ , she could feel her throat close up. That sounded familiar. “Well, that was five years ago, he could be in Europe or Australia now for all we know. What are you reading?”

Silena looked up from the book and quickly tossed it across the room after calmly bookmarking her place. Sometimes, Silena was dramatic, but throwing a book across the room? That was crazy. But, she couldn’t help it because she knew whose book it was and so did Ethan. “...Nothing.”

“Were you reading his _book_?” Ethan asked, finally connecting the two pieces in her brain. Not to mention, the author was _L.A. Castellan_ , anyway, what an asshole. Like, yes, Ethan got it. You moved to Los Angeles. She got it. If that was what he made up to have his name be L.A., then yeah, she got it. “Silena! You were reading his book?”

“I… No!”

 “Oh my God.”

Silena’s cheeks heated up, and she looked into her plate of pancakes sheepishly. “It’s a good book! It’s full of romance and I could give you a full synopsis of it if you want!”

Ethan huffed, crossing her arms. “No, I don’t want to read anything by him!” She glanced over at Roka, noticing how his one blue eye was enough of a reminder of _him_. Roka was born with heterochromia, one blue eye on his left, one brown eye on his right and she hated Luke, because that would’ve never happened if Luke hadn’t been the one with her.

“It’s really good,” Silena hesitantly continued before she grinned and stood up to retrieve the book from where she threw it. “Here, have it. I’ve already read it three times, anyway.”

Of course. Silena was super into romance books, it was just how her mother was and how she was and how Chere will be, eventually. She was a romantic. A die-hard, hopeless romantic and she had a feeling that Chere would be a die-hard, hopeless romantic like her mother was. Ethan couldn’t wait. She took the book anyway, because she knew Silena would pester her about it if she didn’t.

“Thank you,” Silena said and sat back down, looking and giggling at something Chere did and Ethan wanted to choke out a, _you’re welcome_ but she didn’t because she was holding his book. She was holding something that belonged to him that wasn’t of value and she felt sick just holding it.

Seven-thirty came along and Ethan huffed, finishing with her pancakes and helping to clean up the dishes before taking her book upstairs. “Could you watch Roka today?” She called, and she knew that Silena was listening whenever she heard the girl giggle, “I’ve got that meeting with the apartment guy…” And even without looking and while she was fumbling around with what to wear, she knew that Silena was grinning.

“Of course!” Silena said back, and Ethan was able to calm down a bit because Silena was good at watching Roka, was good at keeping him out of trouble, which he got into very often. He was always out and climbing things he shouldn't be, but that was probably the ADHD that he got from his parents (since they both have it). Overall Roka was good. He was a good child, and Ethan made sure to give him the things he needed and a bit of the things he wanted. Even if he wanted a father, she would probably go and get him but the fact that she didn't _want_ him, didn't _need_ him back in her life stopped her from ever going to California and dragging his ass back by his ear. And well, it was also the fact that she didn't know what she would do if she saw him again, let alone what she would say. And probably because of the fact that he doesn't even know Roka exists.

Ethan took a deep breath and decided to not worry about that at the moment. She instead decided that staring at herself in the mirror of the bathroom in the guest room was a better idea.

She was nervous.

She could see her scar, where her eye used to be, and she made a mental note to put her eyepatch back on before leaving. At least the doctors sewed the eye shut so it looked better than what it could’ve been. Damn infection. She remembered getting that infection too. It was weird, because she didn’t even know how she got it, she just remembered waking up one morning at ten years old and not being able to see out of her left eye and it was so gross and infected and even now, Ethan’s stomach churned at the memory. She also remembered how long it took for her to get used to not having any peripheral vision in that eye and a lack of depth perception, but she was young and she had time to learn how to work with it. She remembered the doctors telling her how _lucky_ she was that the infection didn’t go to her other eye, or her throat or something like that otherwise she would’ve been blind or _worse_. The doctors didn’t really emphasize on the ‘or _worse_ ’ whenever she was ten years old but she knew now that if it had gone to her throat, then she would’ve died. And maybe she wouldn’t have had the _pleasure_ to meet Luke Castellan and have her whole life fucked up for three years.

But Roka was five, now. Turned five late September.

And she was okay.

At least, she thought she was okay, because she was still best friends with Silena and could always count on her and Luke was still in California, minding his own damn business instead of coming to her like in her dreams and ruining her sleep pattern.

She got ready, fixed her hair into a side braid instead of one down her back and got dressed into just simple stuff, something that would at least look nice, anyway. She wasn’t in a jean kind of mood at the moment, and she contemplated before putting on leggings and a nice t-shirt, but it was cold outside so she probably would have to wear layers. She found an old hoodie, one that was faded and in the back of the closet but she was sure that it was a track sweatshirt since she could tell -- it had the shoe with the wings on it. Whose sweatshirt was, she had an idea, but she didn’t want to admit to her conscience that she knew whose it was as she ignored the back, which spelt out his fucking last name, and slipped it on.

Ethan turned and glared at the book lying on the bed, and impulsively went to go grab it. If she was bored, she could maybe give it a try like Silena had wanted her to. It wasn’t that big of a deal. Though, to her, it kind of was because then she would be reading something of _his_ and she didn’t really want that at the moment. But, still she put it beside her to grab.

She put makeup on, and perfume and brushed her teeth, and soon she was ready, grabbing her purse, giving a kiss to Roka and a hug from Silena (along with a “good luck!”) and she was out the door, into the cold December air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who really is starting to love author!luke? me.


	3. [2] happy highs are a god send

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well, they sold it to a girl, who is twenty-three years old and has an eyepatch, and has a kid named Roka--”  
> “No. Way.”  
> “Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter two is up!! i can't wait to upload the next chapter, because that's going to be fun :)

Ethan’s purse was heavier than she thought it would be, and that was only because she had brought Luke Castellan’s stupid romance book with her. She figured that after getting the apartment, if she even wanted it, and if she had time, she would get some coffee and read it. Or not, maybe she’d read it whenever she wasn’t busy. But she wasn’t even a romance kind of person, even though it was one of her favorite genres (just because she liked to see what things happened -- most were typical, but good nonetheless) and she wasn’t quite sure how well Luke was with writing romance. He wrote dark, terrifying stories, some that kept Ethan up at night with nightmares of scrawny creatures running toward you until you turn on a light, or something like that. Not romance. In fact, from what she could remember, Luke said to her that romance was kind of not his best thing to write. Maybe he got over that. She’d have to read it whenever she was done or whenever she wasn’t busy. Not necessarily in that order, because she didn’t even know if she’d like the book and actually be able to finish it, but she’d thought she’d try it anyway. Not because she wanted to, but she figured she might as well see what Luke was up to.

But for right now, she couldn’t let her mind wander because she had to get to the apartment in time and she couldn’t just mindlessly drive to anywhere. She didn’t look at the places her and Luke would go, because that only made things harder. She was used to not looking, but something made her want to look -- but she couldn’t because he got his life together in California and she was about to get her life together there in New York without him. (That didn’t stop her from looking at Sally Jackson’s bakery they went to the morning after they slept together -- and she kind of wanted a doughnut then, and even now.)

It took her longer than she wanted to admit (traffic sucked) but she finally arrived to the address that the apartment was located in, and just from one look she already knew that she was going to love it. She already knew her parents were going to like it, help pay for it because that’s what happened whenever her mother was a lawyer and her father a doctor and they had _promised_ her for the sake of Roka, but she was sure that it was so she didn’t go crazy. Sure, she hated growing up in a strict household (and fucking around with a guy who was six years older than her was even worse when both parents knew about it) but it paid off in the end. Literally.

Sure, she would be paying for most of it, but she was fine with her parents paying. It was just as good as them paying for most of her college tuition, which she was still happy about. She didn’t like law school, but it was what her options were.

Not to mention, the college she was going to was near the apartment, and that was maybe why her parents wanted to pay, so she could just drive over quickly, go to classes and come back and be with Roka and be _okay_. That was what she always wanted. To be okay. Not to mention, it wasn’t really that far from Silena’s house. She could just drive over for weekly visits and still be okay.

She just wanted to be okay.

Ethan parked the car in the little parking lot it had, surprising for New York, and turned the car off, taking a deep breath before stepping out. She was nervous, but the neighborhood looked nice and it was an apartment building, and there was even another, much bigger apartment across the street from the apartment she wanted and a coffee shop down the street and she would be _fine_. The neighborhood wasn’t all that busy and she was lucky the apartments she wanted had a parking lot for cars. She stepped inside of the building and noticed they were already decorated for Christmas, and she stopped off at the front desk, a bit hesitant to smile. “I’m here to check out the apartments,” she told the guy at the desk, who seemed nice. The man, who honestly looked like he was twenty or something close, nodded his head and started to call someone on the phone stationed at the desk. Ethan waited, looked around, played with her fluffy coat while the man told her it would be a minute and that was fine because she was literally going out of her mind because she was so nervous and --

A man approached her -- well, wheeled up to her and smiled and said, “you’re the one looking for the apartment, right? Please, call me Chiron,” Chiron said and Ethan smiled, shaking his hand. She recognized him as the man who she talked to on the phone, and her heart did a flip because she was so excited and nervous. This was happening. “You must be Ethana, pleasure to meet you, my dear. Come.” She will admit, it was weird hearing someone say _Ethana_ after being called Ethan for so long, but that was her legal name, and so she had to tell him what it was. It was just weird because everyone at her work called her Ethan, too. Except for, like, the boss, but whatever.

Ethan followed the man in the wheelchair up to the elevator, and she went in with him and pressed the button on the eighth floor, the top floor. Ethan stood awkwardly in the corner of the elevator as Chiron explained the good view from the windows and the appropriate number of rooms (four -- one that Ethan could maybe use for storage while the rest can be her bedroom, Roka’s bedroom and a playroom?) and the kitchen and living room that has a fireplace and how there was a balcony and sliding open doors and Ethan felt a funny feeling in her chest. She was so… happy, that it was making her super nervous.

 As they exited the elevator and made it down the hall, Chiron was explaining how the neighbors were sweet and nice. Some even had daughters and sons and Chiron asked, “didn’t you say you had a son?”

Ethan nodded her head and looked over at the man in the wheelchair, “yeah, he’s five.” Chiron grinned and said how _this was the perfect place then_ and _he’ll love it here, lots of open space_ and Ethan was just getting so happy because she’s seen pictures about the apartment online and as soon as Chiron opened the door and Ethan stepped inside, she laughed, in lack of anything else better to do. She was a bit worried about it not looking the same but she looked around and saw that it was the same dark wood floors, the same huge windows with a dark wood kitchen. “Oh, it’s wonderful,” Ethan grinned, going down the hall to see the bedrooms. There was a master bathroom in one of the bedrooms, and Ethan knew that was going to be hers. She looked around for the bathrooms, three bathrooms for the four bedrooms and she couldn’t help but smile and grin and her cheeks were hurting. She walked out onto the balcony and stopped and frowned, because she’s seen the balcony before on the computer, but it was _the_ balcony that was in her dream that she didn’t know about.

He wasn’t even there and he was ruining her mood. She shook her head and let the cold December air slice through her like a knife and she grinned because this place was going to be hers and she wanted it and she was going to fucking _get it_ , with or without Luke. She came back in after a while of talking about self-motivation and saw Chiron sitting there, smiling at her. The room echoed a bit, but that was because there was nothing in it and Ethan felt happy, refreshed after standing outside for a while. It was going to be hers. Roka was going to be happy here, and she would finally have her own place and she would stop feeling like all she did was mooch off of Silena and Beckendorf, and she would have to learn how to cook more meals if she were on her own but that didn’t matter. She would have herself in her dream apartment with her baby and she would be _okay_.

“Do you like it?” Chiron asked knowingly as she looked around in the kitchen, looked around in all the rooms again and noticed the fuzzy carpet that felt so nice in the bedrooms, looked around at the living room and the ‘dining area’ where she could put a table and the balcony where she could put a small circular table. The kitchen had a island in it, one with drawers and cupboards and granite counter tops and a black fridge and she was so excited that she couldn’t help but nod her head whenever Chiron asked the question again.

Ethan beamed. “I’ll take it!”

 

* * *

 

After Chiron left to go get papers and after she had left her new apartment to go down to the first floor to sign those papers, Ethan was back in her car, calling up her best friend because she was too hyper and too excited to call anyone else. As it was ringing though, Ethan thought of a wicked plan and tried to make herself sound upset. Normally, she was able to think of Luke and it would work, but not whenever she was this excited. She still tried though, and whenever Silena answered, she put Silena on speakerphone and said, “Um. Hey…”

Her tone was flat, and she could hear Silena gasp. “Oh… Oh no, what happened?”

“So they, uh, sold the apartment…” Ethan bit her lip, trying to keep her giggles in because she was in a good fucking mood. She could hear a sigh coming from Silena’s end and she _almost_ felt bad.

“Oh, oh no, really? Who’d they sell it to?” Silena asked and Ethan contemplated telling her then and there. She had the keys to the apartment. She had paid rent already with a down payment. She was set. She was on her own (well, kind of).

“Well," there was a bit of an edge in her voice and she tried so hard to conceal it, but it immediately went away whenever she said, "they sold it to a girl, who is twenty-three years old and has an eyepatch, and has a kid named Roka--”

“No. Way.”

“Yes.”

Ethan had to pull the phone away from her because Silena screamed _so loud_ and honestly, she knew she was celebrating by the way she was screaming and yelling. She could hear Roka clapping and laughing, but he probably didn’t even know what they were talking about.

“Hey, I’m going to go to like, a coffee shop so I don’t crash in the middle of the day,” Ethan said after Silena calmed herself down, “and then I’m gonna have to call movers and see if they’d move my stuff and--”

“Hey! Hey, no need to call movers whenever I've got a husband who builds things for a living. Let me ask him." Silena interrupted and Ethan glanced over at the other surroundings by her new apartment. She really didn't want Beckendorf doing that all for her, but it was better than letting strangers come and do it. "But before that, let us take you out for a dinner, or something to celebrate! It’ll be fun, and you’ll enjoy it. You can even bring a date, if you want.” Silena was probably winking over the phone at the end of that sentence, but Ethan just laughed. And laughed. Her? Bringing a date? She'd rather not.

“The only date I want is Roka,” she teased, rolling her eye because that was so silly. She didn’t want to bring anyone else and she didn’t plan on anyone else being there. “Plus, I don’t think any guys my age like the fact that I have a kid. Kinda makes them want to scream and run.”

“You’re twenty-three years old, Ethan,” Silena stated, but Ethan knew that she was lightly hinting at, _you’ve got to get a husband sooner or later_ , and she really couldn’t blame her based on who she grew up with (Silena’s mother was always wanting a dream wedding, and when she got one, she wanted Silena to have the same thing -- and well, she guessed that Silena was kind of imposing that onto _her_ ). Even her own mother wanted her to find someone soon, just so they could have a grandchild. Well, they’ve got one already, but Ethan was still missing the _husband_ part. Maybe she didn’t want a husband.

Or maybe, well…

She shook her head. She couldn’t start thinking about that. She couldn’t start thinking about _him_. Especially as him fitting the husband role. He was in _California_.

She would do fine on her own. She got the apartment on her own. Well, with the help of her parents. But whatever. He didn’t help. She didn’t care. “Okay, I get it, you’re concerned with my dating life -- which you shouldn’t be -- but whenever I’m ready, you’ll know. But as for the date thing for the celebration dinner, don’t expect anyone to be there. When would you want to have it anyway?”

Silena sighed, and Ethan didn’t really want to hear that sigh. That was a sigh that her mother always gave her. “Okay, okay, I’ll stop with the date thing.” Keyword: she wouldn’t. “But I was thinking maybe tonight, once Charlie gets off of work and I could maybe contact Clarisse to see if she could babysit.”

“Clarisse babysits?” Ethan asked, because normally it was Silena who babysat, or Ethan, or Beckendorf or Annabeth, whichever one was available and wasn’t coming with them to wherever they were going. Ethan never really felt like Clarisse was even _suited_ for babysitting, if she even _babysat_. “Well, I mean, you could try her…”

“She’s really nice, don’t worry. She won’t let anything happen to Roka,” Silena comforted, as if Ethan’s tone was enough to tell her that she didn’t really want anyone else to babysit Roka. But if Silena trusted Clarisse, she might as well trust her too. “So, is that a yes?”

“Yeah, go ahead and see if you could get Clarisse.” Ethan said, her happy mood still in effect. She didn’t care at the moment now that Silena was worried about her dating life. Like she said, she was twenty-three. She still had time, if she wanted that time. “A dinner kind of sounds nice, to be honest. But I’m gonna go get some coffee to see if I don’t crash by the time I come home.”

“Happy highs are a god send.”

Ethan laughed, looking up at the building, the top floor, the part that was going to be hers. As she said goodbye to Silena and hung up, there was a bubbly feeling that arose in her chest. And she drove to the coffee shop across the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i might as well upload chapter three today, too.


	4. [3] he wrote the story of us.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And just to rub it in his face, she added: _also, good job **@mrlukecastellan** for publishing your first romance book and also, thanks. you’ve made my best friend a major, major romantic - more than she already was. :)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again!! we're finally into the new year and i have finally decided to post this new chapter! hope you enjoy ♥

Ethan was in a good mood. She had gotten the apartment of her dreams, had texted her mother and father and actually had a _civil_ conversation, and she then explained to Silena over text that she was at the coffeeshop and it was beautiful and she wasn’t mad at her for reading Luke’s book -- and that she wasn’t mad for being up Ethan’s dating (or lack thereof) life. After all, she couldn’t really hold that against her.

She was in a good mood.

She parked her car nearby and slipped inside to avoid the cold December air. She looked around and saw people on their laptops, listening to their earbuds and working, or simply just reading or drinking coffee and hanging out with their friends. It wasn’t as busy as she expected it would be, but it was inviting and friendly and Ethan _loved it._ The whole place just seemed safe and nice and exactly what she needed to calm herself down from going into another happy rush. She would take anything.

She didn’t know if she would fit in, ordering a hot chocolate and sitting down and reading with only one eye, but whatever, she was sure that she would fit in anyway and even if she didn’t, she didn’t care. She paid and took her hot cocoa and sat down in a secluded spot in the restaurant, in a place that was nearby a window and she was able to lean against it as she sipped the chocolate, having it burn her tongue and mouth but she didn’t _care_. She was supposed to get coffee, but the hot chocolate sounded too good so it didn’t matter to her if she crashed. She’ll be fine. She could feel her stomach finally taking in the news about her getting her own apartment, and it was already doing flips but something also felt...off. Like something was going to happen.

Ethan glanced at her purse, suddenly reminded by the little blue edge of the book that was sticking out that she still had something of Luke with her.

She stared at the blue corner before deciding she couldn't just sit there and  _stare_ at it. She drank more of her cocoa and started to preoccupy herself by reading a text from Chiron, who she had exchanged numbers with after showing the apartment. He said that the apartment was ready, the gas and other appliances was turned on and she could move in at any time. That made her really excited and anxious about moving in.

Then, she texted Silena, telling her that she’s gonna be about an hour, but she’ll be there soon so that she could help her get ready for their celebratory dinner tonight, but she needed to chill and be alone for a little while and just focus on the book that _yes_ she’s actually going to read. But she promised she would be home in time for Silena to do her makeup because while she knew things about the stuff, Silena definitely knew more.

And of course, they would have to have time to take pictures and things because that’s what Silena did and she _needed_ pictures of her best friend getting dressed up and ready for their dinner of _her best friend’s new place_. And Ethan would have to post pictures on her Instagram because she loved taking pictures.

That was one of the things that she learned how to do on her own. And because Silena’s subscribers knew who she was and so she got famous by association and sometimes it was overwhelming but eventually she started joining Silena’s videos just to see what it was like and she _enjoyed_ it. Then, it was like she was making her own videos, with Silena joining in. Like they all of a sudden just started making videos and they got famous for it. It was crazy, but she was happy with the recognition that she and her photographs got.

She just hadn’t opened up her own studio because photography was just a fucking hard occupation to get behind and she felt like she wouldn't be able to do it all. But of course, that didn't stop her from taking pictures of Roka and Chere.

Ethan was even able to help out whenever the two got married (she wasn't the official wedding photographer, but she did take some pictures from the side and Silena loved them). 

Ethan sighed, looking up at the tiled ceiling of the coffee shop. She was letting her mind wander into places it didn’t want to be wandered into. She glanced down at the book on the table, glanced at its black and blue cover, with the gold words _To Say Sorry_. She turned it to the back flap, where authors have a little summary about themselves and there was a portrait of Luke, and he still had his bright blue eyes and dirty blond hair, and Ethan could feel her throat close up as she continued to read. He lived in Los Angeles, she knew that, but he was twenty eight whenever he wrote the book. She knew that he wrote other books, had been since he moved to California, but that was the first official _romance_ book he’d published and Ethan sighed.

It also had a list of his social media and she impulsively took out her phone and tapped on the Instagram app, typing the name in and seeing that he had no photos, but the amount of photos he had posted with the amount she was seeing didn’t match up. She clicked the three dots up at the top and unblocked him, and suddenly all of his pictures showed up.

What was she doing? She couldn’t do this.

She instead backtracked and clicked on her own notifications and assumed that by the responses she was getting, Silena had posted a picture from seventh grade where they were having a giraffe party and something about her buying an apartment. So, to put it lightly, she was confused but it was Silena they were talking about and she was sure it was going to be cheesy as ever. It would make her feel better, instead of just looking at Luke's Instagram and seeing his face again. She already saw him in her dreams, she didn't need to see him taking cute pictures of himself and other people and of just random things and food. And books, there were a lot of books.

How sad. She hardly knew what to do whenever she saw his most recent selfie with scruff (she literally went weak in the knees and she's _sitting down_ ). What would she do if she saw him in real life?

She went onto Silena’s picture, seeing it was a contrast between seventh grade giraffe days and a few days ago, whenever Silena wanted to take a selfie because she had put gold eyeliner on her (Silena always complained how Ethan was able to _easily_ do winged eyeliner and she always laughed because it wasn’t her fault).

But when she scrolled down, she finally read what Silena had posted and if it wasn’t sappy, it wasn’t Silena, but nonetheless she read it: **_@silenalovexo_ ** _: to my best friend, my sister, my crazy weirdo who I have the best memories with, even back in embarrassing 7th grade whenever we had that weird horse phase -- but with giraffes. to my best friend who i cried with and appreciated me and worked with me, and i know i have a lot of who i can say this to, but literally_ **_@ethananaka_ ** _is amazing and my best friend! to my best friend, who now finally bought her first apartment… the little giraffe is growing up -- more than she already had to. not to mention, she’s finally reading my favorite book of all time. ;) i love you - can’t wait for dinner!~_

Ethan laughed a bit, rolling her eyes before liking the picture and commenting, _what a beautiful giraffe picture :)_ before closing out of the app. She had to prove that she was reading the book, all because Silena made a big deal about it. She opened it back up, positioned the book and her hot chocolate just like they were props for her picture, that’s all they were, and took a picture of the book. She hasn’t read anything about the book. Hasn’t even read the book.

But whatever.

She chose a filter, since it wasn’t one of her best pictures but it still looked okay, typed out a description, deciding on what to say. She wished she had one of Roka’s giraffe toys with her. That would’ve come in handy. Instead, she chose: _to my beautiful sappy friend_ **_@silenalovexo_ ** _for being supportive and being the first to tell about my special announcement. and yes, this was the book she was talking about._ And just to rub it in his face, she added: _also, good job_ **_@mrlukecastellan_ ** _for publishing your first romance book. and also, thanks. you’ve made my best friend a major, major romantic - more than she already was. :)_

She contemplated keeping that smiley face there, since it seemed almost too polite, but she simply shrugged because she would know it wasn't polite at all. It was more mocking than anything else she could've done. 

Before she could go back and erase it and just take a selfie, she put her location in (Herc’s Coffee Shop) and posted it, closing out of the app before she could tell herself to delete the picture. Surely, he wouldn’t see that post, would he? She wasn’t even following him, and she had _no_ idea if he was following her. So that made her feel safe, even if she knew that they didn’t need to be following each other to see each other’s posts. What if he saw her posts about Roka? What if he already knew? Oh, oh God. She didn’t think about that.

She was about to go crazy but she took a deep breath, because if she had blocked him, then he wouldn’t have been able to see her posts. He wouldn't have been able to see anything, wouldn't have been able to comment or talk to her.

It just looked like she had a bunch of followers for no pictures.

But now that she unblocked him, he'd be able to see everything. Unless he blocked her back. And so either way, it was okay. It wasn't like he was going to directly go and spam her now that he could see everything, or at least she hoped he wouldn't do that. Though, Roka looked more like her and so maybe he wouldn't even be able to tell if it's his? The only thing that he could see himself in is that blue eye, and even the blue eye was a mutation. 

She decided to look at the book that she supposedly was reading. Might as well see what it was about anyway. She didn’t want to read it, but she took it out and set it out on the table and opened it up, reading the cover sleeve:

_Jake didn’t want to leave her. She was interesting, something he hadn’t ever seen before and something that he wanted. They were just on different terms. But Jake had to focus on something else, had to leave because he was scared of losing her. Well, it seemed that he lost her anyway._

Ethan glanced up, staring at nothing, but that didn't mean she couldn't wear a glare on her face. Was he really serious?

Was Luke really that fucking serious that he would make a book out of something that was secret to only _them_? He made a fucking story about them?

Or, maybe it was someone else and Luke had someone else and she didn’t have the right to read that much into it but that was just how she was and she felt like it was about them.

She skipped past the tribute and the ' _Chapter One_ ' pages that no one reads, and began to read the first chapter. As she read, she noticed that ‘Jake’ (a twenty-five year old) had met a twenty year old girl at a little get together that one of her friends had made and Ethan’s hands began to shake. The girl’s name was Ashton, and _Jake_ made it very clear that it was like a boy’s name but it _suited her_ and how she was carrying a Physics book.

Ethan slammed the book closed and huffed, leaning back in her booth. She didn’t want to read any more of that stupid book, he literally published something that they had.

She texted Silena and said about the equivalent of ‘ _oh, how fucking nice, he wrote the story of us_ ’ and set her phone down before pulling her hood up on her hoodie. After a minute of staring off into the distance, she decided to read some more of the book just to see how much was Jake and Ashton and how much Luke fucking wrote about _them_.

She heard more people move in and out of the doors, the bell above the door ringing each time someone decided to walk through them, but she paid no attention to whatever was going on, she was too wrapped up into the book and how it was so much like _them_. Right down to the fact that Ashton had soft black haired tied back into a braid. But really? He had to get the party thing right? Why couldn't it be more romantic?

She had gotten to the point whenever Jake and Ashton were talking more and she hummed a bit to herself, remembering some words that were said, like how she was tired of the party no matter how much she was friends with Silena, and how much Luke was tired of everything else. Jake seemed to have the same persona as Luke, and that was only because he _was_ Luke. The words were somewhat the same. Ashton’s words, though, were a bit off from hers and that was probably because Ethan was a bit more stubborn and _Jake_ couldn’t handle that. Ha, Luke couldn’t even handle that. But, Ashton was sarcastic and Jake and Ethan both detected that and she grinned because at least he got _something_ right.

Jake had also kept explaining how _beautiful_ Ashton was and how _cute_ she was and how much he felt something for her and it made… It made Ethan a little sad because was that how _Jake_ felt or was that how Luke actually felt? Sure, he had said those things to her but she never really believed it unless she wanted to. 

Maybe she was reading too much into it.

Maybe Ashton was based off of another girl with a boyish name that he met at a party and that he liked because it was _California_ for God’s sakes, he could’ve met anyone there that happened to be too similar. Because that’s all that she was hoping for. She didn’t want Ashton to be based off of her, but she definitely wanted to know if Jake was how Luke acted and thought like. Jake at least sounded similar. Ashton was definitely how she would've described herself, only a bit more sexual than she was used to. Was that how she seemed around him? Oh God, that would've been terrible.

Or, maybe he liked it, because his character, Jake, was definitely liking it. At least that was an accomplishment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who else is kind of shipping jake/ashton now? literally same.  
> sorry this chapter was so short!!


	5. [4] you want to go out and get greasy pizza?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “E-Ethan, I… I didn’t think you would still be in New York.”  
> “I didn’t think that you would even be in New York, either.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> B)

As she read _To Say Sorry_ , Ethan played with her hair like she always did, unbraiding it and braiding it until she got bored with it and left it down, slight curls forming at the ends of her black hair. She had moved repeatedly in her booth until she was finally comfortable with leaning on the window, the book up and close to her face to ignore how other people were looking at her. She's been in the cafe for a while, and so she probably looked weird, reading a romance book in the corner of a coffee shop, but if anyone noticed, they didn't say a word. She had even taken her coat off and put it back on only to take it off again because the temperature in the shop kept fluctuating and she didn’t like that.

Her hot cocoa was gone. Her hair was messy. She was three and a half chapters into the book and already hating herself for agreeing to read it, posting about it. She literally shouted out Luke and told him good job for writing the book, good job for making Silena more of a mushy love-struck girl.

She pulled her feet up to her chest and continued to read, keeping everyone out of sight so she could just focus on the words. She started to like how it was written, because that was how well of a writer Luke was, and she thoroughly enjoyed reading his stuff, even if Jake kept talking about Ashton. Even if she had to read about how... Explicit things got between Jake and Ashton, and _yeah_ it was definitely dedicated to her. It was clear that it was for her.

She had even gotten curious and checked the first few pages that she ignored in the first place, and there was the actual fucking _dedication_ he made sure to put in there for her. Like he was rubbing salt into her wound. It was more an insult to injury than the fucking book was.

And yet, she _loved_ it because even if he couldn’t come back, he still thought about her and she was fucking _glad_ she dominated his dreams and his thoughts just like he had done with her. Good. It made her fucking happy to know that she was still present in his life even if he decided to take a job in the West Coast. And even then, rereading the words of the dedication was tough. 

_To the best girl I’ve ever met in my life, I still dream about you._

Silena probably read that and thought it was romantic.

Other girls probably read that and swooned.

Ethan read it and memories of him saying that she was the best thing he’d ever met came back into her head and it felt like she got stung. She felt like she was getting another tattoo, just instead of on her collarbone, it was on her heart. Or it was like she was getting stabbed. She was just letting her killer stab her repeatedly and that was how she felt.

She flipped back to where she was reading before, the very, um. Explicit part that was completely true on all accounts, but why did he have to put that in there? She felt exposed, even though no one knew that Ashton was her -- besides, like, Silena. She didn’t know if she could read any more of it but she found her eye scanning the words, letting them sink in as her stomach twisted up. She felt sick as more of the explicit things continued, but that wasn't because it was a _sex scene_ , it was because it was _their_ sex scene. 

Suddenly, Ethan felt a presence and she felt even more exposed, like the person knew what she was reading (it wasn’t hard not to know, since it was practically in front of her face). She peeked out to the side, to see a body standing there, and for a split second she assumed that it was just like… the barista asking if she wanted more hot chocolate. She said a small incoherent sentence, since she couldn't speak, but she hoped that it would be enough, but the body didn't move. She glanced up from her book once the man suddenly said, “I see you’re reading my book,” and his voice was smooth and attractive and immediately she recognized it, “want me to sign it--?” 

She didn't want to look up but she _fucking_ did and caught eyes with none other than _Luke Castellan_ , and her voice died in her throat as he seemed to have the same effect. He was trying to be suave as if she was just a crazy fan reading his book, she knew that, what a dick, but that had died along with her voice as he saw her. They both stood there, gaping at each other because they couldn't talk and Ethan didn't know if she had accomplished that she managed to get Luke speechless or if she was going to be sick.

There was many things she wanted to say, there was many curses she could throw in, but she couldn’t speak because he was there in _New York_ , in the same coffee shop by her new apartment and it was like her dream but worse and she wanted to _scream_. What were the fucking odds? She hated him. She should've listened to her gut. She knew something was going to go wrong.

“E-Ethan,” Luke muttered and Ethan stood, and she hated being five-foot-five around him, the six-foot-one bastard. She was always this short around him, and being away for five years didn’t help. Ethan closed her mouth and tried to think like her mother. Her mother was intimidating. She could be intimidating if she chose to, too. She didn’t try and focus on how Luke had scruff growing, because Ethan always _loved_ that, but now it didn’t feel right because she couldn’t love that anymore. “I… I didn’t think you would still be in New York.”

“I didn’t think that you would even be in New York either. Funny, right?.” Ethan scowled, putting her book back in her bag. “And no, you cannot sign the book. I wasn’t even reading it.” She huffed and put her coat on. She didn’t want him seeing that she was wearing his old track hoodie.

“Yes you were, I saw you.” Luke moved his hands from his pockets on his coat to his back pockets on his jeans, and Ethan rolled her eye. He was suddenly so… Chill, calm, like seeing her wasn’t even affecting him and it _pissed_ her off. Everything about him pissed her off, now that he was actually there. In New York. In Manhattan. In the same fucking coffee shop she was in. “Do you like it?”

She blinked. “Like what?”

“The book.” Luke laughed and Ethan’s fists clenched. She wasn’t a violent person by any means, but that hadn’t stopped her from getting into fights in middle school. Yeah, dark times, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Not to mention there was a fucking prick who kept snapping her bra straps (but she only snapped on him whenever he snapped her eyepatch string and threatened to untie it). But now, she was angry. She was fucking _angry_ , more angry than the time whenever she deleted everything about him, because now he had just waltzed back into her life and made a fucking _joke_. 

“Oh.” Oh, of course he meant that. This was stupid, she didn’t have time for this because her throat was closing up the more she talked to him. She shook her head and started to walk past, because it was dumb, she made a fucking post about that dumb book and she could hear Luke talking to her, and oh _God_ she didn’t want to turn around but she fucking did. “Wh-what?”

“Since I am in New York right now, would you…?”

“Oh, really? You’re doing this now? Whenever you have to go back to the west coast? No thanks.” Ethan snapped, turning around and making it more dramatic than it needed to be but honestly she was angry because that was how her dreams started and she wasn’t going to give in. She could be as fucking dramatic as she wanted.

Luke ran a hand through his hair and gave out a little sigh, muttering out, “then we’ll talk about things, just not right now. Can I meet you at Tony’s, tonight at five?” Luke asked, and Ethan shouted back as a response that she had dinner plans tonight as she kept walking. She didn’t clarify, but she could still feel him walking behind her, beside her, and she felt like she was choking. Drowning. She couldn’t breathe. She'd rather him strangle her than anything else. “Then tomorrow?”

“Castellan, what are you doing?” Ethan snapped, turning around to face him. She would need some of her mother’s courage and sass to deal with this, and to do that she would need to be grumpy (which wasn’t that hard now that he was _there_ ). “Why are you doing this? Five years and all of a sudden you want to go out and get greasy pizza? What’s wrong with you?”

Luke paused for a moment, obviously thinking about something and Ethan wanted to walk away, but she didn’t because she wanted him to say shit that he didn’t say before he left. “I thought they had like, pasta there.”

Ethan blinked, once then twice, and scowled. What on Earth was he doing? Tony's is a place you don't want to take a girl. Ever. Unless, it's for the breadsticks. “No, they have just gross pizza and awesome breadsticks there, and Rome’s _Italian_ Restaurant and Pizzeria is the one with pasta and like, hot wings and other things. Hence the _Italian_ _Restaurant_ part.”

Luke paused again, and Ethan found it kind of endearing how confused he looked, with his eyebrows furrowing together as he thought, but she also hated it because did he really not remember what restaurants served what? “I thought Rome’s was the one that had jumbo pizzas and that’s it.”

The black haired girl let out a little laugh, because he was really dumb and wasn’t listening to anything she was saying. “No, Luke. Rome’s has pasta, Tony’s has pizza only, and Chef Pizza has the jumbo pies and that’s it.” She looked at him and he was smiling at her and were they flirting? Oh, they were flirting and it made her uneasy. Suddenly, she felt sick for laughing because that was Luke making her laugh and she didn’t _want_ him making her laugh. “An-anyway, I have to go.”

“At least tell me you’ll meet me at Rome’s, the one with pasta, just to be clear. Maybe like, tomorrow? At like, seven?” Luke asked and honestly, she didn’t want to say yes, but she found herself nodding and she found the blond smiling at her and she wanted to scream. She wanted to say to forget it, she wasn’t going to fall back into the same trap as she did last time, five years and six months ago. And what about Roka? What would he think? What would Luke think about Roka? Oh, God, she couldn't think like that, not whenever the blond was actually here, and her hands were shaking.

She made it to her car after Luke had smiled at her and she felt sick, she felt nervous and anxious because she had just said _yes_ to a date with _Luke Castellan_. Luke Castellan, who, probably wasn’t staying in New York. Luke Castellan, who was probably staying in New York for the holidays -- even if he hates his mother and father.

Luke Castellan, who had no idea he did what his own father did, who had come back and was fucking witty and asked her out, even if it was to a restaurant with shitty pizza at first. Luke Castellan, who was here and her dreams were beginning to become real -- and thinking that made Ethan cry the entire time back to Silena’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how was that? good. sorry this one was so short too, I originally had 3&4 combined.


	6. [5] truth is, i never learn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bitterly, Ethan laughed out and exclaimed, “guess who’s in New York!” as if she were excited about it, and stood up, walking to the kitchen and laughing like a madwoman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yaaaaay! new chapter!! ♥

The second Ethan got back into Silena’s house, she was trembling, her hands were shaking; she was a mess and she hated herself for it. Silena was luckily at her crafting table in the living room, which was nearby the door and the Christmas tree that looked like it was a picture from Pinterest or something. She didn’t want to be confronted, but she figured she would be because Silena was right there and that was what she expected would happen. She wanted to turn and run upstairs as quick as she could, but she couldn’t. Silena had turned around and gave her a look before she could even make it to the staircase.

“Oh my god, what happened?” Silena asked whenever she saw the tears, and somehow, like a mother would, she was able to usher Ethan into sitting on the couch, into talking about what made her so upset. She didn’t want to tell her, but she was ushered into telling because that was what Silena was about. She wanted to know so that she would be able to help. Silena helped people. Ethan shut people out.

Roka was at her side in an instant and she hugged him tightly because the last few hours had been polar opposites on her emotions and she just needed something _stable_ in her life and that was just her son, Silena, and that was it. If she had to count her parents, she could because they were all about being stable, but she didn’t want to include them. Not at the moment.

Silena gave her time to calm down and when she did, Roka was the first to show her the little snowflake ornament Silena made for him out of LEGOs. “That’s very cool,” Ethan forced herself to grin and she sniffled a bit, “why don’t you go put it on the little tree that we have upstairs, huh?”

Roka nodded and got off of her lap, and went to go climb up the stairs (like a monkey nonetheless). Ethan stared off into space, because she just didn’t want to think about how weak she looked and how shitty she felt talking to Castellan because he was in New York with them and she didn’t know what to do. Not to mention, finals were coming up for her and she had no idea what anything was about anymore, and something told her she wasn’t going to know until the day of. Something told her she wasn’t going to study until the day before and that wasn’t a good habit that she wanted to get into. Her father would probably smacked her with a roll of newspaper, or something.

“So,” Silena said quietly, as if she was fragile and it was really more of a bruise to her ego rather than anything else. She was supposed to be the hard one. She was the one who wasn’t supposed to get all choked up about seeing a stupid guy again. She was supposed to be the one that didn’t let Luke affect her. She was supposed to be hard and selfish. “What happened…?”

Bitterly, Ethan laughed out and exclaimed, “guess who’s in New York!” as if she were excited about it, and stood up, walking to the kitchen and laughing like a madwoman. All that she could hear was Silena exclaiming stuff to her like she hadn’t heard what she said (when it was clear she did) and skittering her way into the kitchen.

“Like, _him_ him?” She asked, and Ethan looked back at her and nodded, because it was good that they didn’t have to specify _specifically_ who it was, “for what?”

“I don’t know, for the holidays or some shit but he’s here! And I bumped into him while at Herc’s, and I just--!” She paused to slam her hands down on the pretty white granite counter top that was in her kitchen and Silena arched an eyebrow over at her, like she couldn’t believe that she was actually at Herc’s.

“You were at Herc’s? The coffee there is so bitter--”

“Thank you, Silena, for focusing on the bitter coffee. I got a hot chocolate anyway. But, anyway, come on.”

“Sorry. But, I can’t believe you saw him! Even after you made that little comment about him in your Instagram post…” Silena grinned, walking over and poking her side. “Don’t think I didn’t see it, it was cute, too. The way you made that smiley face. Maybe he saw it, and wanted to come visit you.” Ethan just grumpily stared out the window, seeing it start to snow.

“No, he thought I was just some avid fan. He asked if he could sign my book. And, okay, but you don’t get it, I would’ve been fine seeing him--” Silena gave her a look of _no you wouldn’t have, don’t lie to me, Ethan_ , and Ethan ignored it and bitterly spat out, “but he asked me out! He had the nerve to ask me to go to Rome’s tomorrow at seven!”

Ethan glanced over at Silena, and she could tell that she was having a hard time choosing whose side to be on. Silena was a hopeless romantic and so the fact that Luke showed up and asked her to a date. She _loved_ love, new beginnings and happy endings. That was how she got through life, believing that everything and everyone had a reason to love and had a reason to be loved. That was how her mother grew up. That was how Silena grew up.

 And so knowing that, Ethan knew that there was going to be some side to her that would agree to Luke’s little shitty impromptu date, but she also knew that Silena was strong enough to know that Ethan knew Luke was a _shitty person_. But, that didn’t stop her from going, “ _weeelll…_ ” and Ethan knew she had lost. The hopeless romantic was there and she was winning.

“Don’t you go siding with him, at first he asked me to go to Tony’s and I had to tell him that Tony’s only serves greasy pizza!” As soon as she said it, she knew the whole thing sounded funny, and she couldn’t help but giggle along whenever Silena started to stifle her laughs. Tony’s was notorious for having greasy pizza, but they had amazing breadsticks and so really it was a win-lose situation. “But at least he had the decency to ask me to Rome’s but he still sucks.” she said and her shoulders slumped and it was really all too much for her. “It would’ve been more romantic if he had asked me to go to the Blue Bakery with me.”

“But did you say yes?” Silena asked, and Ethan could tell that she was excited and she didn’t really want to say no, because she didn’t say no. She didn’t say anything, but she nodded and that said _everything_. More than what she wanted, and she just started to cry again.

“Truth is, I never learn.” She said bitterly past her sobs. That was supposed to say a lot, that was supposed to tell the other girl that she was _stupid_ and shouldn’t do it, shouldn’t go and shouldn’t even trust him or talk to him, but Silena started to celebrate, started to cheer, and Ethan put a damper on _her_ mood by saying, “But just seeing him made me upset.”

“Well that’s not good. Come on, let’s get you ready for your celebratory dinner, and we can talk about it then.” Silena said and grabbed onto Ethan’s arm, and she had no choice but the push everything she wanted to say back in until they were able to escape out of her mouth again. When that would be and what she was going to say, she had no idea, but they were there and on the tip of her tongue, she could feel them and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to say them to Silena or to Luke Castellan himself. Or herself for getting herself into the mess.

 

* * *

 

As Ethan was dragged into Silena’s closet, she was surprised because normally she thought she would’ve worn something of her own, but she then figured that tonight was a lucky night and she was allowed to wear anything she wanted because Silena simply wanted her to. She always wanted her to wear her clothes because Ethan would just wear baggy t-shirts and jeans or a sweatshirt and leggings. Rarely ever did she dress up and if she did it was for work or anything like that. Silena, however, was always dressed up. She could make a regular t-shirt look good.

Ethan, fortunately, was good with clothes too. They were just like props, all coming together to form one good picture. That’s all they were. She could do clothes. Silena’s clothes, however, were hard to choose from because there was too much pink, so much red and she didn’t even want to count how many colors and patterns there were in there. There was some neutrals too, which was good because Ethan looked best with neutrals, or at least that was what she thought. She glanced at Silena for help, since she was just sitting back on her bed and watching her with a smile on her face, and Ethan asked, “what kind of place are we going to, anyway?”

“Tony’s,” Silena said in an official and serious tone, and Ethan stared at her with an open mouth before it hit her that she was just kidding.

“Don’t do that to me. Seriously, where are we going to eat?”

“Olympe’s.” Silena answered and Ethan, again, looked at her with a shocked look on her face because she figured the only people who eat at Olympe’s is famous people visiting New York and rich people. And Silena (she really shouldn't have been so surprised). 

And her mother. Her mother loved Olympe’s, and Ethan always remembered going there once a year for her parents’ anniversary. From what she could remember, the whole place was very Greek: loads of Greek paintings and vases and architecture included in the building. She hadn’t been there in a while, since her parents had instead moved their anniversary dinners to home-cooked dinners, just because her mother was too lazy to go out and probably too drunk on wine to even want to go out. They would invite their social friends and work friends over though and even from sixteen, Ethan was expected to act and look and talk like an adult. Not that she minded, though, since it was interesting to hear all of the stupid stories her dad’s friends did and she could gather all the dirt she could get on her mother’s friends, if she needed it for future reference.

“Okay, so then I need to look like I’m going to the Grammy’s. Got it.” Ethan sighed and looked back into the closet. She knew Silena would pick Olympe’s. She knew it. Silena loved Olympe’s, and she could easily get a reservation in because her father works at Olympe’s. It made Ethan jealous, but then again she didn’t care because she rarely ate there anymore. She only ate there whenever Silena and Beckendorf were celebrating something, or maybe it was just Silena who was celebrating (they went there a few weeks back whenever she reached five million subscribers) and so she never really went there. Silena always insisted on having her celebrate at the restaurant whenever she accomplished something, but Ethan would make her just stay in and order Chinese take out. Silena would then look at her crazy, but they always had a good time with the shrimp lo mein and a movie anyway.

Silena grinned at the little small sentence that Ethan had said, and the black haired girl turned around. “No, seriously, what do I wear?” She wasn’t used to dressing classy and ‘ready for the runway’.

That probably wasn’t in her programming. “Well, I kind of want to do that gold eyeliner on you, so you need something that isn’t as sparkly as, let’s say, a gold dress.” Silena gestured to one of her favorite dresses -- one that was literally covered in metallic gold sequins and one that had a medium length trail following its down-to-the-floor skirt. It was strapless, and that was enough for Ethan to shake her head. Her prom dresses always had straps, because she didn’t do well with strapless stuff. Or sequins. That’s probably what she got for not being the offspring of Aphrodite Beauregard, honestly.

Yes, her name is literally Aphrodite. Ethan never really got it, even whenever they first met and Silena introduced her (and Ethan thought she was just complimenting her mother) but then again, _her_ mother was named Nemesis, after the Greek goddess, so she couldn’t really complain. Because ‘Aphrodite’ fitted Aphrodite, and Nemesis, well.

‘Nemesis’ fitted Nemesis.

“So maybe I’ll wear this one, and you can do black. We’ll be matching! Um, sort of. Yeah.” Silena went back into her closet and looked around, finding a full-length maxi dress, with spaghetti straps that have a weird triangular arch in them right by the actual strapless part of the torso.

This was going to be fun to get into.

Silena grinned, “try it on, and I’ll put on my gold dress. Then it’s time for hair and makeup.”

_Great._

 

* * *

 

 

After getting ushered to her room to change, Ethan took one look at the dress and decided to put it on. And honestly, some days, Ethan didn’t like having Silena as a friend because she was so much better than her in every way, and she wouldn’t have gotten two million on Instagram and Youtube without her, but some days Ethan fucking loved the shit out of that girl, because not only did she know what the fuck she was doing, but she was _good_ at it. The dress showed off what little hips she had (but made it look nice) and the weird triangular arch the straps made? Amazing.

It also _somewhat_ covered her tattoo on her collarbone, so maybe she wouldn’t get weird stares from old people at the restaurant (because come on, it was Roka’s birthday in Roman numerals, _come on_ ). And the dress wasn’t skin-tight, which she was worried about, but it flowed out and she loved it and she wanted this dress to herself because she would wear it all the time. She would wear it to her wedding, if it were white because if it wasn’t her father would flip. Whatever. She loved it. She felt like a dark witch in it, or a dark princess (which was what Silena called her whenever she stepped back into her room). Silena was right about the gold dress, it did fit her and she felt bad for secretly not wanting to wear the sparkly dress.

She was glad that her dress was more muted, and the gold eyeliner would make up for the fact that she wasn’t as noticeable as Silena. She didn’t even know who she was dressing up for because she didn’t know who would be there, and her heart began to race whenever she found herself hoping that _maybe Luke would be there_ just because he was in New York now and she didn’t know if she’d see him around town. Plus, Luke was a pretty famous author, anyway.

Silena ushered her down into her chair for her vanity, and immediately she got to work and Ethan felt bad for not doing anything and so she started curling her hair while Silena worked on her face. And the only thing she remembered while talking about Luke and his sudden appearance was Ethan muttering out, “I still feel like Taylor Swift in the song Red,” and Silena laughed until she felt better about the situation. “As mushy as that sounds, yeah. And I hate him for it.”

“Oh, come on,” Silena grinned, “you don’t really hate him.”

Ethan glared over at her and nodded her head. "Yes, yes I do." The look on Silena's face made it clear that she didn't think so, because Ethan didn't really think that she hated him, but it was the only thing she wanted to feel at the moment, and Silena didn't say a word about it.


	7. [6] someday when you leave me [I bet these memories follow you around]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ethan looked around the room, before spotting a certain blond she knew well walking in, followed by a grumpy looking blond who she knew _very_ well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!! long time no see.

After taking enough selfies to cover a museum, Silena finally felt ready enough to go downstairs and Ethan found it difficult to walk in heels, but she managed as she walked down the stairs. Silena managed to say, “whenever this is done, Ethan’s feet are in need of a relaxing pedicure,” and she wanted to take offense to that, because yeah -- okay, she hadn’t painted her toenails in forever but she knew that wasn’t what Silena was getting at. It was more of, _she’s gonna die wearing those heels and a pedicure with a bath will help afterwards_.

Beckendorf laughed as he sat on the couch, and he seemed completely calm, a grin on his face with white teeth showing to prove it. “You can treat yourself to an apartment, but you can’t treat yourself to spending time with your lovely feet?” He was laughing, mocking Silena’s request to spend hours in the bathroom or a spa.

“Yeah, and you do?” Ethan laughed along with him, sitting down and seeing Roka smile up at her as he sat on her lap. “Your feet must love you.”

“I do have nice feet.”

“No one says that.”

The two laughed and Silena sighed, muttering out, “is Clarisse here yet?” she asked, looking around like suddenly she would just appear, before the certain brunette in question popped her head out from inside the kitchen, behind Silena, and effectively scared her. Ethan would’ve laughed at that if she weren’t already feeling a bit anxious. There was a strange feeling in her stomach, one that she’s felt way too much before and something that she’s probably going to feel for the rest of her life. “Well that answers my question!”

Clarisse laughed, her typical bandana tying back her long hair. There was something about Clarisse that Ethan admired, the fact that she looked like a badass that, if put into a dress, would still look intimidating in that dress. Ethan was a bit jealous of that. Not to mention, Clarisse was with Silena ever since first grade, while the black-haired girl was only with her since sixth grade. But, the girl in the bandana was cool with Ethan, and that was all she wanted from her. To be enough, to be cool, _to_ _not be a threat_.

“Anyway, yeah, I’ll watch the little kiddos.” Clarisse smiled, and Ethan realized that she could relax, she wasn’t going to neglect her child and she felt bad for even thinking that. “Have fun on your celebratory dinner date,” Clarisse said, and her blue eyes were on her. They were obviously on her. It was directed toward her, anyway; if she didn’t get the apartment she probably wouldn’t be going to Olympe’s and they probably wouldn’t have needed Clarisse. But whatever. She decided to not take that as sarcasm.

Ethan stood and grinned, mumbling out a _thanks_ before kissing Roka’s head, grabbing her coat, her purse and walking out. Silena followed, and soon, Beckendorf was following her and Ethan turned back to see them holding hands. She stopped and stood in the path of Silena, before grabbing her other hand and walking with them to their car.

Silena was the one to break the ice in the car, and she started with saying how Ethan had found Luke after the apartment, and Ethan wanted to cry or scream, but she couldn’t because she didn’t want to mess up Silena’s makeup skills. Beckendorf kept silent throughout the entire explanation of the discovery, but Ethan saw his hands clench up on the wheel. “But,” Silena said quietly, before coughing a bit and gaining a more confident voice, “it’s okay, because we’re probably not gonna see him, and if we do… Pretend it’s okay.”

Ethan didn’t know if she was talking to Beckendorf or her, or maybe herself but it didn’t matter because she took the words to heart and she settled back in her seat and looked at the streetlights and all the restaurants and buildings and it made her wonder how Luke would ever want to leave this place.

Silena took the opportunity to turn on her Taylor Swift radio on Pandora and Ethan wanted to laugh because an hour ago she told Silena she felt like her and Silena was the one who told her that it was okay to feel like Taylor Swift. She was the one that laughed about it whenever she was doing her makeup and it made Ethan feel a bit better just listening to the blond’s voice. A few songs in, even _Beckendorf_ was singing along to Bad Blood and it made the girl in the back feel a lot better about herself to hear Charles singing to Kendrick Lamar. Honestly, it felt great to have him included and to have them belting out the lyrics like Silena and Ethan were just singing along to any song they knew on the radio back in freshman year.

Of course, they’ve sung in the car multiple times, but _that_ time felt… Rejuvenating because it was Bad Blood and Taylor Swift and somehow it made Ethan feel like she could take on the fucking world and she _would_.

By the time _Wildest Dreams_ came on, she had forgotten about Luke, she had forgotten about the predicament she was in earlier with the blond coming back to New York, and as she sang her heart out, she noticed that that was how she felt whenever she was eighteen and sleeping with _him_ and she hated him again. But, at least it was good to know that those memories indeed did follow him around.

And _that_ she could say was successful.

In the middle of _We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together_ , the trio made it to Olympe’s, where Ethan could tell that Silena was sad for turning off Taylor. She also knew that Silena took videos of them singing out to Bad Blood and posted them on Instagram and Ethan was so sure that everyone who clicked on it could hear her singing her heart out.

Ethan should’ve been embarrassed, but she was too hyped up on Taylor’s confidence that she couldn’t even feel her own heart pumping as she got out of the car and closed the door and walked up to the fancy restaurant’s door with Silena’s hand in hers. She could smell the all too familiar smell -- the smell of roses and white lilies mixed with the smell of Greek food -- that she could recognize from even far away. Even if she hadn’t been to the restaurant in a while, she knew what it smelled like and it _hadn’t_ changed. That was another good, stable thing in her life and it made her feel a lot better about things.

One of these days, she’s going to bring Roka there. Just once.

Silena managed to snap a selfie of them all standing out in the front of the black door that had _Olympe’s_ scrawled out in gold paint before walking inside. The greeter at the front desk had immediately recognized Silena, and Ethan was too busy glowing to care that she was jealous of how her friend got treated around in the place. She wasn’t, however, too busy to notice that Beckendorf nodded at the guy at the special podium just to say hello without saying anything, and the poor boy hesitantly nodded back. Ethan gave Beckendorf a smile as a girl led them to their table, and she could remember how her parents always wanted a table because it was _in the front_ and people would be _able to see them better_. She never really liked the front, because she always felt like people were actually looking at her eyepatch instead of focusing on their own damn business, but at the moment, she didn’t care, she wanted a table.

She wanted to be seen. She didn’t know why, but she did.

Whenever she sat down in her seat though, she sighed and rested her elbows on the table. Her father would’ve swatted at them with his napkin at home, but there he would’ve just given her a _look_ if he saw her putting her elbows on the table and slouching. Silena didn’t say anything, and Beckendorf was too busy looking at the menu. However, that didn’t stop her from becoming self-conscious of her slouching, and so she shifted, sitting up straight. Her father _would’ve_ swatted his napkin at the restaurant if she was slouching. Everyone knew that.

Ethan looked around the room, before spotting a certain blond she knew well walking in, followed by a grumpy looking blond who she knew _very_ well.

She wanted to fucking _scream_.

She guessed Luke’s father wanted to take him out for dinner after coming home for the holidays, and she didn’t have to guess to know that Luke wasn’t so thrilled with that. At all. He did managed to make himself look good in his suit like knowing like she was here didn’t make him want to combust into flames, though, and she was glad to see him dressed up even with his scruff he _still_ had. It was like he knew she liked it. Well, actually, he probably _did_ know because she would tell him whenever they were lying in bed late at night or early in the morning before he had to get up and shave and go places.

And now he was there, at the same restaurant as she was, looking as good as ever as if to rub it in her face. But he was there with his father, who was also equally suited up. Where May Castellan was, she didn’t know. Luke probably didn’t want her there.

The few times that she met May, she was literally _terrified_ of her, and Ethan was sure May was terrified of her, too. Well, sort of, because she kept asking if she wanted cookies (and okay, she knew that May had a mental disability, and she didn’t _mean_ to get scared, it was just -- Luke didn’t warn her about any of it). She had wanted to meet May and Luke had argued against it before quietly giving in, and she had gone and met her and Luke afterwards had to explain that it was fine, she freaked out everyone she’d ever met.

(Not to mention, May probably wouldn’t terrify her as much now that she knew what she had and had read studies about it in her psychology and diagnostics classes.)

“You’re kidding me,” Ethan huffed from her side of the table as she caught Luke’s eye, and he momentarily smiled before his father started talking to him, and the smile went away as he turned his attention to his father, and not her. Which, made Ethan feel weird inside.

The thing about Runner “Hermes” Castellan was, he loved Ethan. He had told her that she was wicked like her mother, but sweet and kind whenever she needed to be and that was good for keeping Luke in place and she didn’t really know what he meant by that, but she figured now that she didn’t really do a good job of keeping him in place -- or keeping him in state, either. But he loved her. Loved joking with her and complimenting her. Thought she was the one that was perfect for Luke, and at the time, Ethan was flattered. Now she just felt sick to her stomach. She clearly wasn’t perfect for Luke, especially if he couldn’t even stay with her.

She looked away from them walking to the booth, with a table or two in between them and Ethan’s table. She really didn’t want Hermes to come over to her table. But it wasn’t like she got a break from having them come to the restaurant, so what made her think that she was going to have Hermes stay over there, _away_ from them? She couldn’t even handle talking to Luke, but Luke’s _father_? That would probably be harder.

“What?” Silena asked, and she didn’t want to tell her because while Silena had her back to the Castellan booth, if Ethan told, she was sure the other girl would _physically_ turn around to look at the person she was talking about. She did it in high school, she’ll do it now.

“Okay, Beckendorf, do you see? Two tables down, the booth.” Ethan told him first, since he was the one facing them, and he probably could make eye contact with them if he so pleased. Ethan was lucky though, because the most that they could see of her was her side but it was her fucking _left side_ and so Hermes would definitely be able to tell it was her. What other people did he know with an eyepatch over their left eye?

“Who?” Silena asked, arching a perfectly-plucked eyebrow.

“Oh my God,” Beck’s sentence was punctuated, halted, and Ethan felt the same way. She knew she could trust him not to get so mushy like his wife. “Funny how they knew to come to the same restaurant at the same time as we did.”

“Right?” Ethan grinned over at Silena and it was a wicked grin, even though she knew Silena didn’t set it up, she was with Silena the entire time and she didn’t know about Luke being here until she had told her about it. Though, now that she thought about it, she did remember seeing a recent post of the Empire State Building on his Instagram after she unblocked him. She just thought it was to say how much he missed it, she thought it was just a picture he took off of Google. Hm. Either way, though, she didn’t blame her because Silena was completely lost. She looked lost. “Just kidding. But seriously, he’s probably here because his father wanted to talk to him and take him out for coming home.”

“Who?” Silena was momentarily freaking out, Ethan could tell, and she couldn’t help but feel the overwhelming urge to tell her even if she knew what she was going to do. Maybe Silena would act chill. Maybe she wouldn’t turn around. The waiter, however ruined the moment and Silena was currently freaking out, but the waiter didn’t seem to sense that and placed the waters down on the table before asking for any wine or food yet. Beckendorf seemed to handle the wine, since Ethan had no idea what any of that was. It was amazing, eighteen years of living with her mother and she still had no idea what any wine was. Ethan took that as a chance to order her usual, if she could even call it that, since she hasn’t had it since the last time Silena took her out to the place. She had to look at the menu to remember what it was called, but she knew it had crab in it. Silena didn’t even have to look at the menu, she already knew what she wanted. The waiter wrote the order down and walked away, and Silena managed to say, “who?” and Ethan sighed.

“Okay, don’t look, but it’s… It’s Runner and Luke.” Ethan sighed again. “Yes. Like, Runner and Luke as in Runner and Luke _Castellan_. There’s two tables in between us, but--” Ethan had to stop whenever Silena did look, turned in her chair in the most _painfully obvious_ way and Ethan glared up at the ceiling, her tongue pressing on her top teeth, before she looked back at Beckendorf and glared at him with the same expression, huffing. “Silena, what do you not get about _don’t look_?”

“They didn’t see me!”

“I’m surprised, that was too obvious. It was like you were waving a flag and telling them to come have dinner with us. Honestly, I would’ve spotted you in a crowd and I’m _half blind_.” Ethan grumbled and couldn’t help but smile whenever she heard Beckendorf snort. Silena was pouting, and Ethan had no sympathy, but she still managed to pat her back. Whenever the waiter came by with a bottle of wine, she took a sip of the drink that the waiter poured and even though it didn’t taste as sweet as she imagined it would, she still said, “thank you.” The waiter poured the other two a drink before walking away, and Ethan looked up at the ceiling. “Weird. I’ve been to this restaurant once a year, every year for eighteen years, and I never noticed they put chandeliers in and strung lights up on the ceiling.”

“No, they put them in like, two months ago. Before, they just had the typical lowlights, and candles, and that was how things were lit.” Silena informed and Ethan nodded, looking around and avoiding the Castellans at all costs. Pretended they were like the plague at the moment -- even if Ethan did feel bad thinking about them like that, because honestly, Runner didn’t deserve it even if he was truly an asshole. At least he was an asshole that was nice to her, at least to her face. That was really all she wanted from him, too, if anything. But the fact that that was Roka’s _grandfather_ over there really made her heart race. She’d never thought about it like that. If Roka didn’t know his father, then that was fine to Ethan, because he was the one that left to Cali. But if he didn’t know him, he wouldn’t know _any_ of his father’s side, and that was what made it so hard to breathe. She didn’t think about it like that, because she hadn’t seen Hermes in a while and even if Luke was in California, it was an out of sight, out of mind motto with him. She didn’t even think that they knew about Roka. Luke _definitely_ didn’t, unless he did some stalking of his own, but she never said it was his. So he might know that she has him, but he doesn’t know who the father is. She was safe, at least for now. At least she could pretend that she didn’t have Roka so he wouldn’t know.

She didn’t know if he wanted him to know. She didn’t want him to hate her. Although, she didn’t want Roka to end up hating her if she did know who his father was and didn’t tell him.

She got onto Instagram and went to her profile, scrolling until she saw a recent picture of Roka that she took to focus on his eyes. The picture calmed her down, it was the one that everyone seemed to enjoy because he was different, and it was the one that _she_ herself loved because of how precious he was to her. She reread the description she had spent days on trying to figure out what to type, and she ended up with: _heterochromia iridum - the difference in coloration_ and for some reason, she loved it. She loved the description. She loved him.

She sighed and even though the tight feeling around her throat was still there, she locked her phone and put it back into her purse, resting her elbows back on the table again.

“You okay?” Silena asked and Ethan hummed, nodding her head. She wasn’t, but it was fine. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m just hungry and missing Roka.”

The girl seemed to nod in agreement, and Ethan looked over at Castellan’s table and caught Luke’s eye. She felt an urge to keep her eye locked on his, but she was thankful that she was able to pull her gaze away from his. Faintly, she reminded herself that she had _won_ , those memories really _did_ follow him around and she was able to turn her attention back to her friends. And when the food arrived, and Silena took a selfie with her food and Ethan managed to get in the picture, she was fine. She felt fine. She was just hungry, that’s all, and so after Silena made a huge deal about getting her apartment, they were allowed to eat.

And she tried to get the feeling of Luke’s eyes off of her.


	8. [7] now go stand in the corner [and think about what you did]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I had to leave, to get out of here. I had to have change.” Luke’s voice was soft, like those words were comforting but they weren’t, they were just cutting through her like blades. He even extended his arm out, like he wanted her to take it, and she stared at it. She wanted to take it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!! sorry for not uploading as much, school is kicking my butt.

She expected the food to be good. She expected the waiters to be nice and the light to be dim and the music to be nice, Greek songs and lullabies, and it was. The restaurant was really her favorite. It was expensive, but her favorite. She expected that. She expected a lot of things in this night to go right.

But what she didn’t expect was to have a surprise visitor come over and visit her table. Sure, they were done eating and deciding on a dessert that _everyone_ had made room for, so it wasn’t like they were intruding. Ethan felt like they were, but if she were with her mother or her father, they wouldn’t have considered it intruding. They would’ve considered it a nice little surprise with some conversation -- because Runner and Nemesis had talked before. They would’ve acted like friends. Ethan wasn’t her mother, though, and her parents weren’t here.

She should’ve really known that he was going to come over to their table after she accidentally caught Runner Castellan’s eye and he had immediately recognized her. As they approached, she could hear Beckendorf going, “oh, God, here they come.”

She could faintly hear Luke whispering as he approached, “Dad, this isn’t a good idea, she’s not gonna want to see me--” and at least he _knew_.

At least he knew that she didn’t want to see him. Not to mention, she was impressed she could hear that over the other two tables in between them talking, but really, being half-blind had some benefits. She was able to hear things a lot better now that she literally had no left eye.

It was nice.

It sucked.

It always made her think about how she had overheard Luke talking on the phone with the publishing company in New York, and how he turned them down. She didn’t know where he was _wanting_ to go but she knew that it wasn’t New York. _That_ sucked. She had just figured it was somewhere close, and not… Across the continental United States. But whatever.  

“Ethana!” The voice made her jump in her seat and she squeaked, almost dropping the small menu that listed the desserts. She really hoped Hermes didn’t make a commotion in the restaurant. That would be embarrassing and oh _God_ she sounded like her mother. But it was starting to look that way, since he continued to say, “I haven’t seen you in ages!”

Behind her, she could hear Luke saying, “look, okay, Dad, you said hi, now can we go? They’re obviously ordering dessert, which means you’re _obviously interrupting_ \--” and Ethan could tell that he wanted to get away as fast as possible. How rude. At least if you’re going to interrupt, don’t be one to want to run away as soon as you could. Not to mention, she was sure he hated his father for doing this. Ethan couldn’t blame him. She didn’t want him at their table either, but Silena was greeting him and telling Luke that it was _fine, he was just saying hi_ and Ethan shot her a look (and she was sure that Luke was doing the same) because while she loved Runner, it was getting a little loud. But that was how he always was. Loud and booming, full of jokes, it almost reminded her of Annabeth’s friend’s dad, who, yes, was literally called Zeus. Ethan’s friends always seemed to have a parent named after some Greek God. It was strange. She never questioned it.

Ethan could feel Luke’s hands on the back of her chair and she sat up straight to avoid being touched on her bare back. It sent sparks down her spine at the touch and she _hated_ how she hesitated moving. “It was good seeing you again, Mr. Castellan,” she said with an awkward smile on her face that she hoped wasn’t too awkward. She added, “you’re looking handsome today.”

“Thank you, but you look _dashing_ as ever, Ms. Nakamura. Do people say dashing? I’m sure I could say it in this expensive environment,” Hermes replied back and laughed and Ethan felt like she was in a movie, but that was fine because she felt like shit at the moment but she wanted Hermes to be tricked into thinking she was pleased to see him and his son. Because she wasn’t pleased to see Luke. Hermes, she could stand, but Luke? Yeah, no. “And so do you, Silena, and again, congrats on your marriage,” he turned and clapped Beckendorf on the back, and he smiled and thanked him and so did Silena. “So,” he turned his attention back to Ethan, and she tried not to seem uncomfortable, “did Luke tell you he was back in town?”

 _Oh no._ Ethan could physically _feel_ Luke’s soul cringe. It filled her up with some sort of superiority. Silena shot Ethan a look. Beckendorf snorted. That had to be the _best_ fucking question that Hermes could ask at the moment. “...Actually, no, he didn’t tell me.” Ethan said, looking up at Luke, but she was quick to notice the little frown Hermes gave his son. She glowed. “Yeah, we… Uh, we kind of, bumped into each other at Herc’s coffee shop--”

“And I asked her to dinner tomorrow night, okay, Dad? Can we go now?” Luke said, and Ethan felt like she was floating. Luke was embarrassed. And she felt like she could do anything in the world. She had him trapped and it was an _incredible_ feeling, getting back at him for leaving.

Ethan grumbled. “Well, the whole dinner thing was after not talking to me for five--”

“He gets it!” Luke interrupted and Silena had to stifle her laugh because she knew what Ethan was doing and hey, she was the daughter of Nemesis Nakamura. She was good at back-talk and revenge. It came _naturally_. Next time, don’t fucking leave for California whenever there was a good enough job in New York. So she wouldn’t have to hide the fact that she had Roka waiting at home. So she wouldn’t have to hide the fact that Roka was _existing_. Suddenly, that tight feeling came back and she sighed, resting her elbows on the table again. “Ethan, could I talk to you alone, for a second?”

Ethan looked up at Silena, who curtly nodded her head. Of course. Of course he would want to talk to her by herself.

Of course Silena would say yes.

She wasn’t in a good mood, but nevertheless she nodded her head and stood, walking over nearby the restrooms with Luke, out of earshot of her table. They were thankfully hidden by two protruding wall that covered the actual doors to the bathrooms and had a space to walk into and two semi long hallways leading to the actual bathrooms, so that made Ethan feel a lot better, even if she were talking with Luke.

Funny how whenever he wanted to talk, they would, but she could never tell him anything-- Ethan sighed. No, he wasn’t like that. It wasn't like he didn't let her talk, she just never _did_. She was just angry. It would actually be her who didn’t want to talk because she never wanted to open up. Ever. That wasn’t how her mother and father raised her and that sucked, but they’re paying for half of her apartment and all of her college tuition. So she couldn’t really complain. Well, of course, she would always complain to Luke about how her father never listened and her mother always had better things to say, but other than that, she couldn’t complain.

“Okay, what was that?” Luke asked, arching an eyebrow as he put his hands in his back pockets. “My terrible father already thinks I’m the bad guy, and that didn’t help.”

“Well, I mean, you did leave.” Ethan said nonchalantly, but there was more scolding in there than nonchalance. “To, you know, _California_. All away across the United States. Of course I want him to think that you’re the bad guy. Because you are.” _You’re the one that did leave your child, so you are repeating what he did…_ Ethan’s subconscious thought and she forced herself not to get choked up. _Terrible person_. At least he didn't know Roka existed.

Luke looked around the area, looked into the mirror they had placed there, before mumbling out, “okay, but you didn’t have to tell him that I didn’t talk to you for five years, because yes, while I didn’t talk to you, you didn’t have to _get even_ and tell him,” the blond huffed and Ethan’s scowl deepened. “You aren’t your mother, you didn’t have to--”

Ethan felt something inside of her snap, and she grabbed his shoulder with her left hand, making him back up against the wall while pressing her right forearm into his throat. Also, thank God she had five inch heels on, otherwise this would’ve looked a lot funnier for someone walking by. “What the _hell_ was that? Don’t talk like you know my mother, because you don’t. You barely even know her and you _don’t_ know what she’s capable but trust me, it will be worse than what I’m capable of.” She was shorter than him, and it was kind of funny, but she was so angry and so fed up with him, especially about the bit of her mother.

She loved her mother. She loved her father. Were they strict? Yeah, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t love them. Were they crazy? Yeah. But so was she. What sane person would press their ex up into the wall with a forearm pressed to their throat? Her mother would’ve slow-clapped it out because finally, _finally_ , she’s letting her anger out on him.

Her mother was crazy.

Despite his position, Luke smiled and Ethan faltered a bit because how could he be _fucking smiling right now_? She just lashed out at him, and he’s fucking smiling? “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t think that you would get that upset… I thought you hated your mother.”

“Well that was -- that was five years ago, okay…?” Ethan stepped back a bit, and crossed her arms over her chest. Luke still leaned up against the wall, but kept his arms away from his chest. He was inviting. She was closed. That was how it always seemed to be with them, until she would finally give in and actually go to him. But, that was five years ago. “And I never really actually hated her, you only remember that because we got into a stupid argument and she took your side.”

“I don’t even remember what that argument was about, honestly.”

“It was dumb.” Ethan muttered quickly, and watched as Luke rubbed the back of his neck like he always did whenever he was nervous. So he was inviting, but now that she made it clear she wasn’t going to give in, he was nervous. Sometimes it was easy reading him (other times -- not so much). “I don’t even remember what it was about but I know it had something to do with the color blue.”

Luke laughed, looked at the ground before back at her, and Ethan let herself smile a bit because it was really over something blue, it was something about whenever they went to the Blue Bakery and Luke had asked about why they couldn’t have purple stuff and Ethan had explained that it wouldn’t rhyme, it wouldn’t make sense. Her mother didn't even know him enough but had taken his side anyway, because what if someone wanted purple? And Ethan was just so confused at why they were arguing about purple fucking cupcakes and donuts and pancakes whenever they clearly had blue ones in front of them. That was also whenever she was stressing about finals, and so she just said she hated her mother and Luke and that was that. She never really meant it, either, since it was a dumb argument, but then again, it was funny thinking about it.

“Whatever, it doesn’t matter,” the black-haired girl mumbled, looking at the roses they had set out in the middle of the room. She stared at the framed mirror they had placed above the roses and she stared at her reflection and really tried not to hate herself. She also really hoped no one saw her practically attack Luke. She had many thoughts racing in her head, and she was too preoccupied to get thrown out.

Maybe it was the wine. She did feel warm and fuzzy while pressed up against him, and she knew that it wasn’t just because she was inches from his face. And if it was, she was screwed. She found it more comforting to blame the alcohol than anything else.

It was quiet before Ethan said, “you could’ve stayed here. There was a publishing company in New York that wanted you, wanted to publish your book and wanted you to work for them.” There was a puzzled look on Luke’s face, before the pieces clicked together and he looked guilty as fuck and she was _glad_ he felt bad. “Yeah, I heard that. You could’ve worked at home and you still would’ve known that Rome’s does pizza _and_ pasta and Tony’s does greasy pizza. Literally, Tony’s only special quality is the breadsticks.”

There was laughs that erupted from Luke and Ethan couldn’t help but join in. That was a really stupid thing to bring up, but he should’ve remembered, because it was a sad time if someone didn’t remember that Tony’s has greasy pizza (and good breadsticks) and nothing else. It was called Tony’s Pizza Palace, for God’s sake. At least Rome’s had the dignity to put _Italian Restaurant and Pizzeria_ at the end. Luke should’ve remembered that and they were laughing about it because it really was a stupid thing and was that an inside joke now?

The laughter died down and Ethan momentarily forgot where she was because laughing like that was _fun_ and she didn’t want to be in the place she was at the moment -- both physically and emotionally. As soon as she heard Luke sigh, it made her really wish that she wasn’t there. That she didn’t exist. Because he was going to tell her that he was better in California, or something stupid. Or at least, she hoped he wouldn’t, but by the look on his face, she knew better than that.

“I just. I needed to get away. I should’ve taken you along but if I do know your mother, I knew that she wouldn’t have let me take you with me. California seemed like the better place to be and I just needed a change of scenery.” Luke explained and there it was. There was the ‘California was better’ card. She didn’t care if California was better. She didn’t care if he needed to get away because she needed to get away from a lot of things but that didn’t mean that she could just move across the country. She had to stay with them and fight them because that’s what she would do. There was no running away.

“So you ran away from your problems, is that what you’re telling me?” Ethan asked, feeling a bit upset that their laughing moment was gone. She was trying to think of a way to incorporate Tony’s pizza back into it so that they could just laugh and forget about it but she couldn’t. She was sure he wouldn’t laugh, anyway. She wouldn’t laugh if she were him. “You literally ran away from everything you had here just to get a change of scenery?” She wanted to run away from her problems. She couldn't. Why could he?

Luke ran his hand through his hair. “I would’ve brought you along,” he admitted, and he was defeated. She knew she was right. He literally could’ve taken any job in the New York area but he went to the West Coast to get a _change in scenery_. Ethan’s lived in New York for fourteen years and she still loved it. She loved New York. Silena had lived there longer, and she was still there. She didn’t need a change of scenery, and if she did it was a vacation that lasted for a week or two. Not _five years_.

“I don’t care if you would’ve brought me along, I didn’t want to even leave New York, you know why? Because I love New York. It's my home.” Ethan argued, her grip tightening on her arms. “And if you wanted a change in scenery, it’s called a _vacation_.”

Luke huffed, noticing the venom in her voice. She was angry. It wasn’t like how she was whenever he talked about her mother. This anger was more personal, and she made sure he knew that. “Maybe I couldn’t stand New York anymore. Maybe I wanted some place else. What about when you moved from Japan? I bet you didn’t want to leave Japan but you ended up loving New York.”

“I was _nine_ whenever I left, and your argument doesn’t even matter. I was forced to go. Yes, I was upset leaving Tokyo. Yes, I love New York. Are you saying that you love California and you hated leaving New York? Because that’s what it sounds like. But you definitely weren’t _forced_ to go, either.” Ethan furrowed her eyebrows, staring at her feet rather than him. She never really knew exactly what he was thinking whenever he left New York, because she never wanted to listen. A small nod came from him though, and she ignored him, staring up at the ceiling, the flowers, the mirror. Anything but him.

“I had to leave, to get out of here. I had to have change.” Luke’s voice was soft, like those words were comforting but they _weren’t_ , they were just cutting through her like blades. He even extended his arm out, like he wanted her to take it, and she stared at it. She wanted to take it. But if she took it, that would mean that she gave in. “But I do take _vacations_ to come back here, I’ve been coming back here for four years now and I figured you didn’t want to see me, and I never saw you. I figured you had left.”

“But, you don’t get it, you couldn’t just pick up all your stuff and leave and see change whenever there was important things in New York. We had something here, between us, and you just left whenever we have--” Ethan made sure to cut herself off before she said anything about Roka. She couldn’t tell him. He couldn’t know. It would only make things a bit more complicated.

“We have…?” Luke questioned, but Ethan ignored it. Tried to ignore it. She almost slipped. That would've been trouble, she didn't want him to know. But, would she ever want him to know? And when would she be able to tell him? What would he do? Would he still go to California? Would he take her with?

The black-haired girl shook her head, trying to clear it of _bad_ thoughts. “Just, nevermind. Go back to your dinner or dessert or whatever, and I’ll go back to mine, and then you can go back to your own life, to your precious California so you can think about what you said to me.” Ethan spat out quietly as she turned, walking back to the table where her friends and Hermes Castellan were located at. “It was nice seeing you, Hermes, but we should probably get going.”

Silena sighed, “I’ve got the dessert boxed up, I figured you would say that after coming back.” The black-haired girl and her husband both said goodbye to Hermes Castellan, and Ethan walked out the door without looking back.

And she was quiet on the way home, and Silena knew that something had happened, so she kept the radio down and didn’t talk as much as she did on the way to the restaurant.


	9. [8] i carry the weight of you in my heavy heart.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was so much more to it that she didn’t want to bring up, especially because she almost let Roka slip. But Silena insisted, even sat on the bed with her arms crossed tightly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!!! it's been almost a month since i've updated and i feel so bad but here we go

“I want you to tell me exactly what he said, exactly what you said and exactly what you did,” was the words that Ethan heard whenever she thought she was alone in her room, taking her dress off and tying her hair back in a braid. Her feet hurt from walking around in those heels. Her heart hurt from talking with him. But she didn’t want Silena to get involved. Silena always got involved, was involved from the time whenever her and Luke started...doing things. She was someone that she could look to for advice. But now she didn’t want to tell what her fight was about. She was mentally exhausted. That whole talk-argument thing was a roller coaster.

Honestly, she didn’t want to tell Silena. She didn’t want to tell her that she practically pounced on him before making him laugh before telling him to basically _fuck off_. Or at least, that was how Ethan wanted to remember it as. There was so much more to it that she didn’t want to bring up, especially because she almost let Roka slip.

But Silena insisted, even sat on the bed with her arms crossed tightly. She didn’t want to tell Silena, she would rather cuddle up with her kid and cry whenever he fell asleep and pretend like she didn’t know that Luke left to get a change in scenery. To get a change in his life. She didn’t want to know that. She didn’t want Silena to know that, either. But there she was, all clad up in her pajamas finally (after being in that dress for so long, she wasn’t a dress kind of girl even in such a cute dress) and she flopped down on her bed, untying her eyepatch and tossing the fabric across the room. She didn’t even had time to take off her makeup whenever the girl got into the room, and she was sure that she would try and have them go out again anyway, so she might as well keep all of Silena’s hard work on her face for right now.

“Well, to put it shortly,” Ethan grumbled and Silena laid down next to her, grinning a bit as she did. She was really wanting to know this, wasn’t she? Well, Ethan couldn’t blame her, since they were talking about Luke, and Silena had a crush on him when they were eighteen (even if she was with Beckendorf for a year and a half beforehand -- _yes_ , Luke was just that attractive and Ethan honestly was shocked whenever he started talking to her). Ethan took a deep breath and tried to remember what went on even if it were just an hour ago. There was a pause before she said, “well, I almost attacked him after he pulled me aside and said something about my mother, and then he talked about how he thought I hated my mother whenever I just hated that she sided with him over a stupid argument we had, and then he laughed and I laughed and then I brought up how if he had stayed then he would’ve known that Tony’s only serves greasy pizza and we laughed about that, but then he talked about how he hated leaving New York but he loves California and he brought up Japan and how he needed a change of scenery which means that he needed a change from me, and then I basically told him to fuck off because he couldn’t have change, not with Roka here. And then he said something about how he wanted to bring me along and I just.” Ethan paused, her hands and entire body shaking. She _hated_ feeling this vulnerable, especially in front of Silena but at the moment, she didn’t care because she knew that Silena was feeling her emotions as well. She didn’t know how, but with one look at the other girl, she could see her eyebrows were furrowed and her eyes were full of hurt.

Suddenly, a question came out of her mouth. “Would you have moved with him?”

Ethan paused, glancing at the girl with wide eyes. “Y-You know my mother would’ve never--”

“I wasn’t asking if your mother would’ve approved it. You aren’t your mother. I was asking you. Would you have moved with him? To California, lived there with him while he got a job as an author, would you have had Roka there? Been a family?” Silena asked, her motherly tone getting in the way. But she couldn’t blame her.

There was a pain in her chest that she couldn’t explain, but honestly, it was probably the pain of her heart bursting in her ribcage. She would’ve rather Silena stab her than ask her that question because _she didn’t have an answer_. Would she have gone to California with him, without the permission of her mother and father? She was eighteen, after all, she could technically do what she wanted but she wasn’t sure that her parents would necessarily like that. And Luke would know about Roka, would’ve taken care of him, would’ve _loved_ him and it was just painful for her to think about now that she hadn’t followed after Luke. She would’ve been able to raise her family in California and would’ve had Luke by her.

But what if she had brought it up at the time that he was leaving? Would he have said no? He was practically implying that he needed change from the scenery, and she felt like that included _her_. She felt like he would’ve said no or make up some dumb excuse for her to stay.

And even though she could’ve had a family in California, New York was her _home_. She was going to stay in New York and if she got a job besides the waitress job at Rome’s (that’s how she knew automatically that Tony’s was an insult that Luke just spewed out of his mouth) in like, Japan or something, she would probably go back to her actual birth place. Though, that would still be a hard decision to make and she’d have to look into everything because she’s lived here for so long.

Silena’s question was stressing her out. There were too many options, too many ideas and scenarios that could be applied to the question and Ethan hated it.

But, Ethan’s stubbornness stayed clear from the stupid heart-wrenching thought of having a complete _family_ with Luke and she shook her head, more forcefully than she could admit. “New York is my home.” Silena didn’t look too convinced, but she knew better than to push and ask repeatedly, so she just sighed and nodded her head. Ethan was grateful.

At last, after a few moments of awkward silence and Ethan sniffling, Silena cooed out, “how about we get that pedicure? Most places are still open at eight, anyway. There’s one place where they close at ten, so that will be perfect. And then, I can take you out to get ice cream and then we can have a girls night at home, okay? I don’t work tomorrow.”

“Neither do I. I work on Monday, though, since Alabaster took my shift for tomorrow since I told him that I had problems today. I’m sure he assumed that I had problems with Roka, but still. He still covered for me.” Ethan explained and sighed, trying to focus on Silena’s hand rubbing on her back after a few moments of letting her words and Silena’s suggestion soak in. Suddenly, she said, “so, let’s do it,” and stood up to grab her eyepatch. Before she could stop her, the other girl was up, grabbing her by the hand and dragging her into her room.

Silena let Ethan wear whatever she wanted, but that didn’t stop her from choosing a pair of Silena’s leggings and Luke’s old track sweatshirt that said _Castellan_ on the back (and yes, her conscience finally agreed with her mind that yes, it was Luke’s and yes, she still had it and wanted to wear it). She looked at Silena as the girl slipped out of her dress and into one of Beckendorf’s old hoodie and some black yoga pants. She looked kind of funny with a ton of makeup on and then had yoga pants and a hoodie on, but Ethan knew she looked the same way and suddenly she really didn’t care how they looked, she was going to enjoy her time with Silena because she had promised they were going to have fun. And Ethan would keep her to her word.

They made their way down the stairs and Ethan saw Roka and felt bad for letting Beckendorf watch after him while she ran upstairs. That was probably one of the reasons as to why Silena was so quick to come follow her. Ethan picked up Roka while Beckendorf paid Clarisse and Silena gave one last hug to the girl with the bandana before she walked out with a wave from her hand that was probably for Ethan. She didn’t really mind. She nodded her head at her and turned to focus on Roka tugging at her hair.

“Momma,” Roka mumbled into her ear and the black-haired girl looked at him. She wondered if he knew what was going on, if he could actually sense that she was in pain, but if he did, he made no attempt to tell her besides from the tight hug he then gave her.

Ethan sighed a bit, because if she didn’t she felt like she was going to explode. This was already too much, and now she felt like Roka _knew_. “Hey, little one,” she said, pulling away from the hug so she was looking at him, and she wanted to tell him, she wanted to let him _know_ but she didn’t and instead she said, “Silena and I are going to go out for a few hours. Remember to listen to Beck and do as he says, okay?” Roka nodded his head and Ethan set him down on the couch next to the man.

“He’ll be alright, he’s probably tired and will probably pass out soon.” Beckendorf grinned and Ethan nodded, since it was almost the five-year-old’s bedtime, and she felt bad for having Beck do it, but Silena was ushering out the door and she barely had time to say thank you.

While walking out to the car, Ethan mumbled things like, “I should probably put him to sleep,” and “I feel bad for leaving him,” but Silena seemed to just sigh and push her into the passenger’s seat and closed her door for her. Ethan wanted to rub her temples. She did. She got some foundation on her fingers, but she didn’t care.

“He will be fine, and don’t worry. Charlie doesn’t mind, he’s got to put Chere to sleep too, and you need your time.” Silena got in on her side of the car and turned on the engine, pulling out of the driveway. Ethan curled up in her chair, pulling her knees to her chest as she looked out the window absentmindedly.

“I can’t believe Luke went to the same restaurant the same time we did.” Ethan mumbled out quietly, feeling the window vibrate beneath her temple, and honestly it wasn’t too comfortable having her head rest against the glass, but it was good enough for her. It was almost distracting and it felt nice.

“Yeah, that was weird. I didn’t think he’d actually take up my advice.” SIlena said, before pausing a moment and Ethan turned to glance over at her, and underneath the street lamps she could see that Silena’s fists were tight around the steering wheel. It was quiet, and before Ethan could make out a response, a bitter response, Silena explained. Quickly explained, because Ethan was ready to scream. “Okay, so he saw that you mentioned him in a post which meant that you unblocked him, right? You knew that. But you didn’t know that he also saw that we were still friends because of your post, and he messaged me on Instagram and told me that his father was wanting to go out to an expensive restaurant and he wanted ideas, since he hadn’t been here in over a year.”

“You told him about Olympe’s?” Ethan asked, her voice a bit higher and louder than she thought it would be. She wanted Silena to shake her head no, but when she just nodded, Ethan groaned and fell back into her seat.

“I’m sorry, I told him that I was going to a dinner there and I guess he just assumed it was probably just going to be me and Charlie, I didn’t tell him that you were going to be there…” Silena sighed, taking one hand off of the wheel to run it through her hair. “I’m sorry, Ethan, I really think he just thought it was going to be me and Charlie…”

The way she explained it did make it seem like it was just _her_ going to Olympe’s, even if she had posted selfies of them heading out. Maybe Luke hadn’t seen those, maybe he was too busy dealing with his family and getting ready. Silena’s assurance made her feel a little bit better, but she couldn’t help but mutter out, “and I assume that he didn’t ask you for the top nail salons, either, right?”

Silena knew that she was joking, even if she did say it kind of bitterly, and it made the girl laugh to get on ease. She really did know that it was pure good intention, but still. That was Luke they were talking about. Ethan couldn’t just have him pop up into her life, more than he already has.

Suddenly, the heavy feeling of them having a _date_ tomorrow washed over her. She was literally making this worse for her. “Silena, I have a date with him tomorrow,” Ethan mumbled as Silena continued to drive, and the black haired girl took a deep breath, but repeated, “I’m having a date with him tomorrow. I can’t do that.”

“Isn’t it exciting?” Silena asked, looking over at the other girl with a smile on her face, and Ethan wanted to shake her head. That wasn’t exciting. If anything, it was just giving her heart and breathing problems. “Are you nervous?”

Before she could stop herself from admitting defeat, she said, “yes,” and the other girl grinned wider than before. “I am nervous, I’m scared, I just. I just don’t want anything to happen that isn’t supposed to happen.”

“That’s completely understandable.” It was quiet before she again talked. “Hey, when do you want to move your furniture in? Charlie doesn’t have work tomorrow and you don’t have work tomorrow, and neither do I, so it’d be perfect. Plus, you’d be able to have your own apartment ready for you once you get back from your _date._ ”

“Are you implying that once I get back from my date I’m going to bring him home and sleep with him? Isn’t that how I got into this mess anyway?” Ethan arched an eyebrow as Silena shrugged nonchalantly. Great. “Is that really what you were implying?”

“Sexual tension! It happens, you never know.”

“Silena!”

“It’s true! It was sexual tension then and it is sexual tension now!” Silena grinned, and Ethan mumbled out a stupid, incoherent response. She was right.

Even if she was, Ethan then mumbled out (coherently this time), “even if we were to sleep with each other again, he’d take me to his hotel or whatever. Not my place.” Which he seemed to like doing, honestly. “It was never my place since I always told him I had my parents there, which obviously wasn’t true, due to their jobs. So it was always his place, or his car, or his _something_.”

Whenever Luke first talked to her, she was all about giving out biting remarks and snappy responses. That was her defense mechanism, because she thought that Luke was just talking to her as a joke. Because really, Luke was a twenty-four year old who was really attractive, while she was just eighteen years old, plain, and reading a miniature pocket-sized book on physics. It wasn’t like she had a test in a class either. It was summer. She was reading physics because she liked physics. Anatomy. Biology. Law. Psychology. It was all interesting to her, but there was that guy, with a scar on his cheek that went up all the way to his eyebrow, talking to her and she just wasn’t having it. After a while, Luke had gotten used to her remarks and still looked at her like she was the next Aphrodite or something, which was weird because she was good looking, but never like Silena.

It was weird to think back on how self-deprecating she was.

But her and Luke had kept talking and suddenly he had finally admitted that he was tired of everything and then he asked her what she was tired of, and she had glanced down at the book, glanced back at him and said, “pure.” And if that wasn’t sexual tension, she didn’t know what was because then she could recall clearly that Luke had given her a smirk and took her hand and lead her out to his car. At first she had really thought that she was going to lose her V card in the back of his Mustang (which, now that Ethan thought about it, she wouldn’t have really minded, they had done it a few times in the backseat which really wasn’t that comfortable, but it was _nice_ ) but he took her to his place. His place was a nice, rustic looking apartment from the outside, but once she stepped inside she could tell that it was probably his parents that helped paid for the apartment since it was sleek and big and large in size. There was a balcony outside and a big couch in the middle of the room, with a television right in front of it. She didn’t exactly knew what job he had but she knew it had something to do with short stories. What were they called? Novellas? He wrote novellas.

Apparently he had got the ones that he had written so far published, but then she could remember him saying something about how he wanted to write a novel, and Ethan listened to him as they walked up the stairs into his bedroom, because she was too nervous to do anything else.

Ethan flinched as Silena nudged her shoulder, and she turned to face the other girl. “We’re here, what were you thinking about?” She asked, and Ethan shrugged her shoulders even if she really did know. She did miss whenever Luke would lead her up the stairs time and time after that, even though she really did know where she was going. She missed the conversations they had at three in the morning, whenever the things they were saying were real, were raw, were awkward and truthful. She felt her purse, which was awkward and heavy, which was weird until she remembered that his book was in there. She was literally carrying him around with her and she missed it, _hated it_.

And it wasn’t like she could just forget about everything that happened between them while she got her nails painted, but she tried so hard to. Silena was even picking up on it, and as they talked while getting her nails done, she made sure to stay away from the topic of Luke, something that Ethan was glad for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this chapter is so short >:(


	10. [9] sorry I'm late

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _**@ethananaka** : about to go out on a date. feeling nervous as ever. thanks **@mrlukecastellan**. asshole. also i just literally moved into my new apartment today thanks to my two best mates. xo_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for not uploading! i had to write a term paper about human rights violations and Auschwitz ever since february. :)  
> but im here now!! i turn my final paper in tomorrow. i hope i get an A! or at least a B.

Ethan woke to the distant sound of Silena’s alarm, and she opened her eye and saw that she was in the glittery white and gold room that was the downstairs living room. She glanced over and saw the other black-haired girl sitting on the long portion of the couch still snoozing away, and Ethan nudged her arm with her foot. Ethan herself was sleeping on the little part that connected the loveseat with the three-seated couch, and so whenever she sat up and clicked the snooze button on Silena’s phone, she felt her spine pop.

“Nice,” she whispered sarcastically under her breath and stood up, stretching a bit more and hearing her joints pop even more. She walked into the kitchen and ran a hand through her long, black hair and made herself some hot chocolate. Silena was always good at making hot chocolate, only because she added her own spices and other things like that but Ethan just really wanted a hot chocolate and didn’t want to wake the other girl up. She would just have to deal with her own way of making the drink.

However, as soon as she finished heating up the milk, she heard Silena’s alarm going off again and immediately afterwards, she heard a small groan and the sound of Silena’s hand shooting out to tap the button. She was finally waking up, and as soon as she saw a head pop up from behind the couch, Ethan waved a bit to her.

“Good morning to you, Sleeping Beauty.” Ethan didn’t comment on how they forgot to take their makeup off, and so Silena had smeared mascara and foundation on her pillow and had raccoon eyes from her eyeliner. Ethan didn’t even want to look at how terrible she herself looked. At least they didn’t lose any fake lashes, though, like the last time they slept without taking their makeup off.

“You probably woke up five minutes before I did, I don’t want to hear it,” Silena said and yawned, sitting up and rubbing her shoulder. “Couches are not to be slept on.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Ethan said and didn’t even try and resist the urge to rub her own shoulder. Sleeping like that literally killed her joints and she was only twenty-three. And Silena herself was nearing twenty-four, so. They were too young to be talking about bad joints (even though Silena did have bad knees and Ethan had bad hips, but whatever, the point was still there -- they shouldn’t even have bad joints yet anyway). Silena stood up and walked over to her, arching an eyebrow at Ethan’s Starbucks mug. Ethan tipped some of the mug down so she could see the drink. Which was weird, because normally Silena was taller than her, but Ethan assumed she was slouching or something.

“Hot cocoa sounds so good right now,” she mumbled, and instead of making it from scratch (which was what she always did) she grabbed the mix and started to warm up some milk in a mug. After a few seconds of silence, and Ethan was bathing in the warm sunlight shining through the window, she heard the sound of Beckendorf walking down the stairs, followed by two pairs of pitter-patters. Silena turned to Ethan, and with a smile on her face, said, “seven-thirty AM, and the crew is already up.”

Beckendorf came into the kitchen, and Roka immediately went for Ethan, hugging her with a grin on his face. “Look, Momma! I’ve gots my bear suit on!” he said, hopping around and roaring at her, Silena, Beckendorf, even Chere.

“I see, I see,” Ethan grinned, glancing up at Beckendorf.

“I don’t understand how you’re able to get sleep with this lil guy. Six AM he was up, hopping around in your room, our room,” the man said and Ethan nodded her head. “It’s like he can’t sit still, he just needs to keep moving. Chere almost snapped at him.”

“I don’t even know where he got it from. And it wasn’t even like he got it from his dad,” Ethan laughed at how Roka jumped around, but then frowned and the adults in the room seemed to understand why. Why did she bring _him_ up anyway? She shouldn’t have said anything. “Or, maybe he did as a child, I don’t know. If he did, he never told me.” The girl sighed a bit, wondering how Luke would react to having an energetic child, and that made her more frustrated than upset. “Then again, he never really told me anything about his childhood, except for he got a scar on his eye from a car accident, his dad left, he hated his mother, and ran away from home. Oh, and that he sprained his wrist jumping from a trampoline to a playset and missed.”

She could feel Silena’s eyes blazing into her skull, but she didn’t turn to look at her. She just kept simple eye contact with Beckendorf.

“Well, I guess I never told him much either, now that I think about it.” She was trying to be vague, talking about her childhood, but whenever she glanced toward Roka the adults seemed to get it. Why couldn’t she just tell him? She could’ve told him yesterday, and left him with that, but she knew she wouldn’t have been able to forgive herself if she did. She couldn’t just dump that on him.

She then felt her stomach flip, because how could he practically dump moving to California on her, with no regrets, but she couldn’t do the same?

There was Silena talking, but Ethan didn’t really focus on what she was saying. She was a bit preoccupied to even pretend to care. She wasn’t listening until Silena had said something about boxing everything up, and Ethan cut in with, “how are we going to box everything and move things and still have time for my date at seven?” like she hadn’t been thinking about what an a-hole Luke was.

“You mean you actually want to go?” Silena asked and the other girl paused, looking out the window rather than anyone else. Did she want to go? She could tell that he was serious about the whole thing, but she wasn’t actually sure if she wanted to go until now, apparently. Silena was right, when did she decide to go? It wasn’t like she had thought about it, either. “Like, on a date, with Luke, right? Luke Castellan? That’s the date you’re talking about?”

“Why is this so hard to believe?” Ethan asked, setting down her mug on the counter, turning to Silena, crossing her arms over her chest. Roka jumped up and down trying to get attention from her, but she kept her eyes on the girl in front of her. Chere started walking off somewhere else, and Beckendorf rolled his eyes and walked out to see where she was going. That was always a thing that happened. Whenever there was some sort of confrontation going on, Chere was equally good at receiving it and picking it up. Fortunately, it didn’t happen so often.

 _Unfortunately_ , it was normally Ethan that caused it.

Silena sighed a bit, nodding her head. “Because it’s hard to believe. You’re actually going on a date with Luke?”

“You’re the one that told me to basically go for it because that’s how your heart always acts.” Ethan mumbled, watching as Roka then decided the two girls talking was boring, and decided to go off to wherever Chere and Beckendorf went. “So why can’t I just go out on a date with him? I still hate him--”

“But,” Silena interrupted, smiling a bit and Ethan knew that she had lost her. She never should’ve said anything. Her heart still hurt from yesterday, and she didn’t know whenever that was going to stop and she _hated_ it. “Just because you still hate him doesn’t mean you aren’t willing to give him a chance.” With no words, the girl figured she had won and sipped her hot chocolate triumphantly, and Ethan scowled, glaring down into the brown liquid in her cup. “And that’s the Ethana I know.”

“Just because I’m going on a date doesn’t mean I’m marrying him, Silena,” Ethan rolled her eye and glanced back out the window. Silena tutted her lips.

“Might as well, you’re telling him that you forgive him by agreeing to go and _actually_ going.” Silena said, shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly. Ethan glared over her shoulder at her, and the girl sighed. That was _soooo_ not what she wanted to hear. She wasn’t marrying the guy. They were just going out for pasta. “What? It’s true.”

“You’re actually making me not want to go,” Ethan grumbled before pouring the rest of her hot cocoa, placing the mug in the sink and walking upstairs to wipe the makeup off.

She could hear Beckendorf talking and playing with Chere, and it just made her heart hurt because she was _jealous_ that Silena had that opportunity. Jealous that Beckendorf found a job in town and was good to his family.

Ethan was officially beginning to cry whenever she opened the door and closed it behind her. She glared at herself in the small vanity she had, forcing herself to calm down. It was stupid. Did she even want Luke to be in Roka’s life? Did she want Luke to be in _her_ life?

She figured those questions weren’t helping and so she sighed after putting her hair up into a bun and sat down in the middle of her floor, staring at the door. She knew that Silena would be coming up sooner or later, and so she might as well wait. She could be putting things away in boxes, but the boxes were probably downstairs in the basement or something like that and she really didn’t feel like moving again. Well, she didn’t really want confrontation from Silena again, but still.

Why did she have to say those things? And in that case, Ethan could be talking about the both of them; it didn’t really need any specification. _She_ brought up the date, but _Silena_ made it worse. Much worse than possible, with the doubt and then the love-struck marriage thing. Should she even go on the date? Or should she just not go?

She saw the door open, but it wasn’t who she thought it was going to be. Out of frustration, she mumbled out, “did your love-struck wife send you up here?” and stood up from where she was sitting after she realized that Beckendorf had some boxes in his hands.

“Well, she told me what happened, so yes, but I do have to ask something,” Beckendorf said as he set the boxes down on the floor, “why exactly are you going on this date with him? Wasn’t that something that you said that you would never do?”

Ethan sighed. “I guess I’m true to my word. I accidentally said yes in the first place, and so I have to go.”

“But you don’t want to.”

“Not after Silena decided to say that I was trusting him again and that I loved him again! She basically took my yes as a marriage proposal. Or what she hoped was one.” The girl crossed her arms tightly over her chest and Beckendorf raised his arms up in defense. There was a bit of tension in the room, Ethan was sure of it, but she couldn’t help it. She had to go because she said yes, and that didn’t mean that she liked him. Well, honestly, she never really stopped loving him, she just fucking hated him and was angry with him and that was what fueled everything.

Beckendorf sat down on the bed, arching an eyebrow at the girl. “Listen, Ethana,” he said, and almost as if he were calling to her, she sat down next to him, because whenever he used her full first name, she felt like she was in trouble.

It was all just habit, due to her mother saying _Ethana Eleanor Nakamura_ whenever she was in trouble, which was a lot more than she suspected it would be. (And Ethan had no idea why her middle name was Eleanor, her mother just liked the name and she guessed it stuck.)

Nevertheless, Ethan listened to Beckendorf. “I know you want to go. I know you still have feelings for him, no matter how much of a stupid idiot he is. Silena tries too hard to get you to be happy, and so whenever you said that you were going, it confused her because she just thought that you’d want to stay away.”

Ethan sighed, looking around the room instead of at him, like she always did with Luke. “So what are you saying?”

“I’m just saying, I think you should do what you want to do, that way Silena will know it makes you happy, and she’ll stop confusing you and herself.” Beckendorf said, and Ethan finally had to look at him because while it did make sense, doing things she wanted on her own was a bit terrifying --  coming from a girl who had been told what to do her entire life, regardless of if she wanted to do it or not. And Silena’s suggestions on ‘go for it’ or ‘you actually want to do that?’ were confusing as Beckendorf said, and Ethan nodded her head at the man. She was moving out. She was going to be on her own. Of course she would always look to hear Silena’s opinion about things but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t do her own thing.

And after a moment, Ethan nodded her head again and just simply said, “let’s just get packing.”

 

* * *

 

Four and a half hours moving, a total of six and a half hours packing. That’s how long it took for Ethan to finally think through all of the chaos with moving and think about the date, and it was nearing six o’clock and she hated herself.

Luckily, Silena was too generous and since Ethan didn’t actually have a bed, they were able to give the guest bed to her to sleep on, since she didn’t have one for the apartment. They still needed a couch and some tables, and other things, and Silena was going to help with that (and honestly, why wouldn’t she help? She’s good at doing interior decorating) but it was near the time that she should start to get ready.

She was looking through her stuff, trying to find the box labeled _Ethan’s clothes_ while Silena kept an eye on Roka, which she was going to do while they went out. After a moment, she heard Silena ask, “can you paint the walls?” and the black-haired girl rolled her eyes as she found one of the boxes, and she opened it, digging through to see if she could find a pair of jeans and a nice looking sweater to wear to Rome’s. Alabaster had texted her, saying that her shift he covered for her went fine, and he asked how Roka was doing. She simply ignored that for now and found a cute, loose-fitting gray sweater with spikes on the shoulders, and she figured that wouldn’t look right with jeans and so she looked around in the box again, finding some leather leggings that would look better.

She remembered that Silena had practically made her buy the pair of leggings, just because she said that she’d never know when she’d need it, and because apparently Ethan looked good in leather pants. The pants weren’t really her, but she decided to grab a pair of black boots and go for it anyway, and as she walked past Silena to get to the bathroom, she heard the girl repeat the same question she had earlier.

“I dunno, Lena, I’ll have to text Chiron and ask,” Ethan said, heading into the bathroom with her clothes. As she stared at herself in the mirror, she sighed and huffed, moving her bangs out of her face. She had thankfully showered and shaved that afternoon at Silena’s, since she wasn’t going to take Silena’s guest bathroom’s shower curtain after taking their guest bed. She changed out of her comfy sweatpants and t-shirt and into those weird-feeling leather leggings and the baggy sweater. She then sighed and walked out, tossing the boots next to the door and dove back into the boxes, finding some socks and her makeup bag. She was hoping Silena could do her makeup so she wouldn’t have to.

“Hey, Silena?” She asked, grabbing her black makeup bag, a curling iron and a brush, and heading into Roka’s bedroom. “Do you mind helping me with my hair and makeup?”

And as if the sun came out, Silena smiled brightly and nodded her head, telling Roka to follow them into the bathroom. As Ethan sat down, she felt a bit better about herself and moving in and going on a date with Luke, even if she didn’t know how that would go. But she felt good. Silena was curling her hair, and Ethan watched after Roka so he wouldn’t play with anything he shouldn’t play with. As it turned to six forty-five, Ethan was freaking out. She wasn’t going to make it on time, but it wasn’t like she could just text him that. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t have his number. It also wasn’t her fault she had really long hair and it took forever.

But she kept her eyes on her phone as Silena winged her eyeliner, and did the rest of her makeup, and she probably should’ve done something while she was doing her hair, but she had to keep Roka entertained. At six-fifty, though, she was all done and gave Roka a kiss and Silena a hug, put her coat and shoes on, grabbed a bag with her things in it and headed off, locking the door after herself.

She even paused and took a selfie of herself in the car, because she knew that Silena would want to see it, even if she was running late. She made sure to put a little description, too: **_@ethananaka_ ** _: about to go out on a date. feeling nervous as ever. thanks_ **_@mrlukecastellan_** _. asshole. also i just literally moved into my new apartment today thanks to my two best mates. xo_

And with that, she posted it and she drove off to her doom, Rome’s Pizzeria and Italian Restaurant, to meet the person who could probably kill her with his words.

But hey, it wasn’t like he hadn’t done that already.

 

* * *

 

It was quarter past seven whenever she walked into the restaurant, smelling the sauces and the pasta and the cheese that she was so familiar with. The place was darkly lit, only having enough light to see where you’re going on the walkways, and enough light to light up tables for families to talk to each other and read the menus, but the place was still not lit up like normal restaurants. It was nice though. The place was nice. It was inviting.

Rome’s was an easy job, and she liked the place and the people she worked with, Alabaster especially, which was odd for her. She never really liked anyone. Luckily, Alabaster had already gone home, so he wouldn’t see her here, all dressed up like she wasn’t trying to dress up and impress Luke.

It was better than the first time they met, though, whenever she hadn’t even done her eyebrows and was literally the laziest girl ever, but that was fine because she was sure he was used to seeing her like that. Raw and natural. She remembered him saying that it didn’t matter if she had makeup or no makeup, he liked her anyway, and honestly, that made Ethan feel a bit better waking up next to him in the dark hours in the morning.

Now, it just made her feel weird. She wondered if that were still true.

Ethan spotted Lou Ellen seating people and she faintly smiled at her, effectively getting the younger girl’s attention as she worked. Lou Ellen grinned, before turning her attention that Ethan just got onto the family she’s seating. There was a smaller girl who walked up to her, who couldn’t be more than eighteen years old, but really she looked younger, and her curls were tied back in a cute scrunchie. She seemed new.

“Hello, I’m Hazel!” Hazel said enthusiastically and Ethan nodded. “Oh, hi, are you Ethan? I know you work here but I just wasn’t sure.” Ethan nodded her head once more, and Hazel again grinned, “are you waiting for someone?”

“Um, he should already be here…” Ethan mumbled and Hazel nodded her head, and Ethan could tell she was about as enthusiastic as Lou Ellen was, and that was a good thing. The manager, Reyna, always wanted people who were enthusiastic to work, so it would be kind of like a home and a nice family restaurant aura. Ethan just faked it sometimes, especially whenever she was having a bad day or people were just rude. “Um, under the name Castellan, or Nakamura, or something.”

Whenever Hazel looked in the little dry-erase seating chart of the restaurant, her smile faltered and Ethan was quick to pick up why. Luke wasn’t even there yet, hadn’t even gotten a table for them. Her discovery didn’t seem to stop Hazel from repeating what she had already confirmed, and the girl seemed to sympathize. “They’ll be here soon, I think. Just give them time, I’ll go get you a booth!” Hazel said, remembering to return to her perky self, but even if she hadn’t, Ethan wouldn’t have blamed her. “Just follow me!”

And Ethan did. She followed her. She didn’t know why she followed her; she could’ve just walked out and forgot the whole thing and could’ve just blamed herself for being so stupid. Well, she did blame herself for thinking that Luke would actually want to see her again, after what happened last night. Oh, God, last night, what if he doesn’t show up?

Hazel seated her next to a window, in a booth seat, which she was happy for. Hazel handed out a menu, but kept one in the spot across from Ethan, where Luke would be sitting if he were actually _there_. Hazel started to ask about drinks, and Ethan just mumbled out _water_ , in lack of anything else better to say.

Hazel nodded her head and walked off to go get the water, and Ethan tapped her fingers on the finished dark wood table top. She wasn’t necessarily impatient, but he was the one that said _around seven_ , and so she thought that meant _at seven_. Her parents would say at seven, too, and Ethan would be expected to show up at seven. Granted, she was a little late, and Luke never really had the best track of time with unimportant stuff, but this was unfair.

...Okay, that thought didn’t make her feel any better. Hazel came back with the water and a basket of rolls, one thing that Reyna wanted to keep just because she liked how the rolls tasted. Hazel stood with her pad of paper and her pen ready, and Ethan sighed, looking up at her. “I think I’m just gonna wait on ordering until he gets here.” She said as politely as she could, and Hazel nodded.

“Of course.” Hazel said, putting away her pad of paper and her pen, “I’ll be the one to lead him to the table, and then I’ll give you some time to think about what you want to eat.” She said with a smile and a curt nod, and Ethan did the same before watching her walk off, and she dove into a roll because she was starving. Sure, she waited with ordering, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t eat a roll. Or two.

After finishing her two rolls, she glanced over at her phone, unlocking it and going to Instagram, seeing comments on her picture. They were overall ones about how she’s pretty (how?) and that they love her or something, but nothing else. She heard her phone buzz, and she felt her heart flip as she exited out of the app, clicking on her messages. She hoped it was Luke, who magically got her phone number (from Silena?) but it wasn’t, it was just Piper McLean in a group message with Silena, talking about some chick named Drew Tanaka that Silena wasn’t too fond of, and Piper hated her and Ethan didn’t really care either way. She closed out of the messaging app, and she looked at her background (a selfie with Roka) and felt a warmth spread through her whole body. Everything was going to be okay.

The cold feeling returned whenever she locked her phone and looked up to see that Luke still wasn’t there, and so she dug through her purse and found that that _stupid_ book was still tucked away inside. She ignored the urge to pick it up until it literally overwhelmed her and she grabbed the book, turning it to the chapter she was on (which was surprisingly the ninth chapter -- she had read some late at night or some while she was analyzing it to Silena).

She had to stop after a while, because it was talking about how Jake and Ashton were visiting Long Island Sound, splashing around in the water late at night and how Jake happened to fall, after slipping on the white foam, the white crest of the wave, and how Ashton laughed her ass off as he sat up, seaweed on his head. There was also people by her table, voices she recognized like Hazel, and then she heard _his_ voice but she didn’t dare look up at him. She was angry. The beach, the slipping on the water, the white crest of the wave, the laughing, the seaweed: that was all them. That wasn’t Jake and Ashton. That was _them_.

The white crest of the wave was _them_. It was theirs, whether or not Luke knew about it.

It actually pissed her off more than Luke being late did.

“Sorry I’m late,” Luke mumbled. “Why is it that whenever I bump into you, you’re reading my book?” He asked and Ethan gave a tiny shrug as a response. Hazel asked him what he wanted to drink while the girl put away the book she was reading and Luke had answered with a, “water please,” and Ethan subconsciously took a drink of hers. Hazel nodded and told him that it’ll be out in a minute, and that a refill for her will be coming too, and Ethan bowed her head.

After Hazel had walked away, Ethan’s glare was quick to come and sharper than it had been whenever she had first seen him in over five years. “It’s seven forty-five, Luke.”

The blond in question ran his fingers through his hair and sighed like he was guilty and she knew _he_ knew that he was. “I had a conference meeting that went on until seven-thirty. I had to book my way over here. Anyway, they were talking about turning my book into a movie. They haven’t specifically said yes, but if I talk to them again they’re thinking about it--”

“No.” Ethan shook her head, her hands shaking as she talked. There was a silence between them and she could feel the space between them physically growing again.

Luke arched an eyebrow. “No? W-what...What do you mean, no?”

Ethan glared at him with all of her might before slamming the book down on the table. She had to dig through her purse again to find it, which distracted from her point, but she made sure to make it clear again by sliding it across the table. “I don’t want the story of us to become more publicized than it already has.”

She watched as Luke looked down at the book like it was a mistake, and she wished it was for him because it was a terrible thing to try and make up a story about _them_. An accurate story, nevertheless, but still. She hoped Jake actually was an ass at the end and moved to some place thousands of miles away from Ashton. At least _that_ would be accurate.

With no words from the blond (literally he sat there gaping like a fish) she huffed and grabbed her coat and purse, standing up and preparing to leave only to be stopped by Luke’s hand grabbing her wrist and the words, “I saw your Instagram post.”


	11. [10] why did you kiss me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then, as an offering, she held her fork out toward him with another piece of shrimp on it. She’d even wrapped some noodles on it too. “Try it.” And he did. And Ethan couldn’t help but smile whenever he did. And God, she hated it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ya know that paper that i was freaking out about from the last chapter? i got a 98% on it. so that's cool!!! also happy st patricks day :)

Ethan’s hands trembled. What on earth was he talking about? Was he talking about the recent one, or _all_ of them? Or just the ones with Roka? But he only said one?

She paused, looking at his hand on her wrist before looking completely at him, trying to calm herself down. She hoped he didn’t feel her shaking. She hoped he couldn't see her shaking.“Wh-which one? What are you talking about?” she asked, and Luke grinned at her. Whatever that meant, she wasn’t sure, but she took a seat back down in her spot and he got onto his phone, showing her the most recent post, the one of the selfie in her car. She took a deep breath and sighed, trying to stop her hands from shaking. “God, you asshole,” she mumbled out before she could stop herself and Luke arched an eyebrow, and she had to shake her head before she muttered out anything else. She thought he was talking about the posts with Roka, but if he had seen them, he made no attempt to say anything about them. “What about it?”

“I thought it was cute.” Luke grinned once more, and Ethan rolled her eyes because while she did like that he thought it was cute, she had to remind herself that he thought the post was cute, not her. Or maybe he thought she was cute. Whatever, it’s not like that mattered anyway. It's also not like she cared either, because she didn't. She knew she was cute. She didn't need his approval. But if he found that, did he go searching throughout her pictures? “I’m sorry I made you nervous.”

Ethan again had to process if he meant the post, or just then, but she decided to go with him thinking the post was cute because that was what he was talking about. She offered a shrug as her only response. It fell quiet.

Luke’s water and her refill had arrived and they were given a few moments to decide on what to eat. Ethan knew what she wanted, since she basically worked there, but she kept quiet and pretended to think about what she wanted because Luke was still thinking about what he wanted. Again, he shouldn’t have gone to California, otherwise he would know what they had on the menu, they've gone to the restaurants plenty of times whenever they were dating. Well, now that she thought about it, they had changed up their menu a little, but _still_. They were still a pizzeria and an Italian restaurant. They had ordered their dinners after another few moments, he eventually decided on some plain old spaghetti and Ethan went for the shrimp scampi, and Hazel had gone off to go put the orders in. Luke looked over at Ethan again, and the black-haired girl didn’t like having his blue eyes on her, and so she adverted them by tapping on his book again.

“It shouldn’t be made into a movie.” Ethan muttered and Luke shrugged his shoulders, leaning back in his chair like he did whenever he was going to get smug and snippy. She’d seen the transition many times whenever they had ran into his father or something, and she never was sure if she liked the look or if she completely loathed it. Right now though, she hated how he’d kind of lean back and cross his arms over his chest and arch an eyebrow.

Luke flicked his eyes between the book and her, and she hated it. “Well, you’re also the one that doesn’t like whenever a book is turned into a movie--”

“--I also don’t like whenever my personal life gets turned into a book--” She tried to interrupt, but she got interrupted again.

“Then it’s a good thing it isn’t your decision, isn’t it?”

After a few moments of just blankly glaring at him, Ethan sighed because he was _right_. He was right and it pissed her off. It wasn’t her decision and she hated that she wasn’t a part of it. It was her life too, shouldn’t she be in control of what happens to the book? She didn’t even want the fucking book in the first place, because honestly, who really knew that Luke was going to make a novel about their fucking time together? But now that he had, shouldn't she be a part of the decision too? Maybe she didn't want to have her personal life be broken in the first place, even with that stupid little disclaimer that _this book is a work of fiction_ and _any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental_. Coincidental, huh? Whatever.

With a deflated attitude, Ethan hissed out, “why are we even doing this?”

Luke furrowed his eyebrows, his arms uncrossing from his chest. He leaned forward again, like he wasn’t going to get snippy because he had won. God, he won and she _hated_ him for it. So, why were they even going on a date if he was going to be pissed off and she was going to be a brat? “What do you mean?”

She sighed again. “Why are we even doing this? Going out to dinner? Obviously, this isn’t going to work whenever we have five years between us and a terrible grudge.” After a moment, she muttered out, “asshole,” before glancing down at the place mats of the food they were advertising.

Luke hesitated before nodding his head, looking down at his hands. That was a thing she hadn’t see him do in a long time. The last time she had seen him do that was whenever he heard that his friend (what was her name again? Thalia?) had gotten into a car accident. She was fine, which was good, but Ethan remembered being so jealous of the girl because Luke had been so upset and basically didn’t leave her side until two weeks later, whenever Thalia finally bitched at him and told him to go hang out with his girlfriend. (Ethan remembered feeling bad for being jealous and actually kept in touch with Thalia afterwards, before she went off with two friends to like, Alaska or something.)

She shakily sighed again, resting her elbows on the table as she kept her fingertips on her temples. She didn’t even know what she was doing, what he was doing, what anyone was doing anymore. Everything was confusing and it was all because of him. Or maybe it was her? She was making it confusing, hiding Roka from him and going out on a date whenever she fought with him _yesterday_. She rested her head on her hands and looked down at the table, noticing the place mats again. She noticed out of the corner of her eye Luke sort of standing up, but not scooting out like he wanted to leave, but leaning against the table so he could reach across it, and soon she felt his lips against her forehead. She looked up as he sat back down and continued on like nothing was wrong. Like nothing had happened.

She kept her eye on him, her mouth opening a little because she did _not_ expect him to kiss her head, especially after calling him a asshole. She narrowed her eyes at her, before shaking her head and muttering out his name. “Luke…”

“Listen, I know you’re mad, but can we just forget about it and enjoy this dinner together?” Luke asked before running a hand through his hair. Ethan was still weary about the kiss he had given her, but he was right and she nodded her head after a moment or two. "That's my girl," he grinned, but she could tell he was still very nervous about saying that. She could tell, somehow, and she honestly hoped he felt nervous.

She, however, wanted to scream out that it might not be a good idea, the whole dinner thing might not be a good idea, but he was right and she was sure that it was because it might be the last actual dinner he may have with her. Depending on how well the night goes, anyway, and it wasn’t off to a good start. That may have been her fault, but hey, he was the one that was late.

“I also saw that you moved into your apartment,” Luke brought up suddenly, and Ethan looked at him out of the corner of her eye, instead of at the advertising place mats that she had pretended were so fascinating (while they weren’t). “That’s a pretty big risk, don't you think?”

“Just shut up,” Ethan mumbled out, before continuing, “I know it’s a big risk, that’s why I took it. I couldn’t stand mooching off of Silena, but here I am, still continuing to use my parents’ money to go to school and to live on my own. You know what’s a big risk? Moving to California and getting an apartment there. _Don't you think_?” Her voice was mocking. Too mocking.

That seemed to shut Luke up for a moment, until he nodded his head sheepishly and said, “I was just going to say that I was proud of you.”

Hearing those words made her falter, made her want to apologize for bringing up California, made her want him to say more, just made her want _more_ because what else did he think about her? Still, she shook her head as a response and looked down at her phone. She didn’t want to speak, because she had no idea what she was going to say to him. Of course, beforehand, she had _plenty_ of things to say to him, swimming around in her mind but none of them really stuck out to her now, except maybe…

“Why did you kiss me? I mean, my head.” Ethan blurted out, since that was the only question that she could think of at the moment. After a second, she realized that what she asked didn’t even go along with the flow of the conversation, so she guessed they were just randomly bringing up things. Luke played with his fingers in his lap, and Ethan only knew that he was doing that was because he was always moving, even if she couldn’t see him. Maybe that was were Roka got it from. He got it from Luke. Even in bed, he would move, turn on his side like he hadn’t done that four times in a matter of two minutes. Ethan didn’t mind it, except for the time whenever he turned sharply and whacked her in her bad eye with his hand and woke her up.

Thankfully, nothing went too wrong with that, but Luke wouldn’t stop apologizing for a week and a half afterwards until Ethan told him that she was fine and to knock it off. (Eventually, it became an inside joke with them; he would apologize for her eye even though what he’s apologizing for may not even be about her eye, and she would automatically tell him to knock it off. Unless it was serious, of course, but even whenever it wasn’t they would still get weird looks from people. Ethan was convinced that half of Manhattan thought that Luke took her eye out by the way he talked.)

Luke gave her a shrug for an answer whenever she looked up at him, and it almost pissed her off that he was being quiet. She decided not to let it get to her, because she had thought of that “ _Eye’m_ _sorry”_ story, and yeah, Luke would sometimes hint at that pun too. That also made her want to hit his eye. Really badly. Would she do it? Probably not, but she probably should get her anger out sooner or later. She's bottled up too many emotions all of her life, and this was all too much. They kept moving back and forth in polar opposites, fighting to kissing heads.

She was trying to be in a good mood. She wouldn’t let Luke be the problem anymore, even if she just assumed that wasn’t going to work out as well as she thought it would. “Well, there had to be a reason, right?”

Luke shrugged again, but at least he opened his mouth with a response of, “you just looked so lost, I couldn’t help it,” so at least there was words that came out of his mouth. So she wouldn’t have to hit his eye socket now. Damn it.

Instead, Ethan tried to agree. “I did look a little lost, didn’t I?” She asked, and Luke nodded his head slightly. Ethan eventually zoned him out after that, since there wasn’t anything else that was left to be said. She didn’t say anything, and if Luke said anything, it was pointless and irrelevant and more along the lines of under his breath than anything else. She focused on her phone, which was quite rude of her and her father probably would’ve hit her with the menus if they still had them, but whatever. Her father wasn’t here to scream at her in their native tongue.

She looked at her Instagram, her Twitter, even her messages that she had gotten from Piper McLean and Silena about Drew Tanaka, along with Annabeth Chase ( _ **'**_ ** _Roka still looks adorable, I want to see him again!’_ ** ) and even one from Nico di Angelo (something about how he had heard that Hazel was sitting her at Rome’s). All of the things she could ignore for right now, and she felt bad for being on her phone, but honestly, he was on his phone too, but still. Her father wouldn't hit him with a newspaper when on his phone at the dinner table.

She hadn’t even noticed what Luke was doing until she went back onto Instagram, wanting to see if Silena had posted any pictures of Roka (she liked to do that) and saw that on her feed, the top picture was a picture of her, sitting there and looking at her phone. She forgot that she unblocked him, and she figured she had followed him again sometime through the night -- it was probably a dare from Silena last night. Either way, she forgot that she was able to see his pictures on her feed and there was one that she was tagged in and it was of her, with a slight filter and she was staring down at her phone, looking either dazed or bored, with one hand tucked away on the back of her neck and her cheek resting up against her forearm, her elbow and arm resting on the table. Either way, she could tell that he liked the picture he took of her -- without her permission, might she add -- because of the caption that actually made her feel a bit bubbly inside:

 ** _@mrlukecastellan_ ** _: having the best night with this beauty,_ **_@ethananaka_** _. thanks for the second try._

Ethan wanted to cry. She wanted to throw rocks at the butterflies in her stomach because a simple caption like that shouldn’t have been made. Shouldn’t have made her get all giddy inside. But it _did_ and she hated it, but she couldn’t bring herself to hate it. She took a screenshot, and sent it to Silena with a “:|” emoji. She’d probably love it, and would probably like it on Instagram too, and comment on it. Should she do the same? No, she shouldn't. She didn't want him knowing what she found.

(Seconds later, she got a text from Silena that was just **_AHHHHHH OH MY GOD!_ ** and a bunch of heart emojis following it. Ethan tried not to mind.)

She clicked back over to Instagram and double-tapped the picture before exiting out and looking at her home screen of her and Roka. Again, it made her smile, and it definitely calmed her nerves. It also made her decide to not keep him taking a picture of her bottled up. She was tired of bottling up things, but she felt like that wasn't going to change anytime soon.

She glanced back up at Luke, trying to find the confidence that she had belting out Taylor Swift in the car or the confidence she had posting a video on Youtube or getting her photography out there. She tried so hard to find it, but she couldn't find it in time before her mouth was just going. “So, you like taking pictures now?” Ethan asked, hoping that she didn’t sound as nervous as she still felt.

“I figured I might as well. I know how you used to love taking pictures of me, using me as a model.” Luke grinned and before she could say anything to counter that, their food had arrived and Hazel made some small talk. Ethan made it a plan to not talk while they eat, so it would be less awkward than anything else that she could think of (or would it make it worse?) and so she kept to that plan, but as time went on she discovered that wasn’t Luke’s plan. At all.

She had forgotten how talkative he got over dinner. She wished he would shut up for a while.

“Are you always this quiet?” The blond’s voice was quieter than he was before, and Ethan was glad that he had calmed down over the thoughts of his book becoming a movie. She could still remember what he had said, it was basically ringing in her brain. She had no way of stopping it from becoming a movie. Their love life was becoming more and more of everyone else’s. It wasn’t private anymore, and she sure as hell didn’t want her bedroom antics or her thoughts about Luke being read, even if no one else but him, her and Silena knew that Ashton was her. She was Ashton. No one else knew about it. And it pissed her off.

But she was trying to be good, because she was so tired of just hating him. Yeah, he was stupid and went to California, and she hated him, but it was ridiculously tiring.

“Just tired,” she mumbled as she took a bite of a piece of shrimp; then, as an offering, she held her fork out toward him with another piece of shrimp on it. She’d even wrapped some noodles on it too. “Try it.” And he did. And Ethan couldn’t help but smile whenever he did.

And God, she hated it.


	12. [11] hey, I won't be coming home tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She spat out, “maybe it’s because I have problems.”  
> “Then I want you to talk about your problems.” Luke grinned and stood up, holding out his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm uploading another chapter today because key has been so patient with me ♥

At the end of their date, which wasn’t that bad now that she thought about it, Luke had paid much to Ethan’s disdain (seriously, she could pay for herself) and she had secretly tipped Hazel a few dollars more than what Luke had originally set out, feeling bad for the girl for having to watch her as she waited for the blond.

Ethan followed Luke outside, with her box of her chocolate cake in her hand that he insisted she have (even if she felt like she didn’t want it) and she walked to her car, but she was given a look by the blond that asked her why she was getting into her vehicle. Like a crazy person would. She was shivering, and he was glancing at her like it was crazy getting into a vehicle. “Um, because I’m going home?”

Luke touched her shoulder and it felt a bit weird, and she made that obvious as she arched her back. It was cold. It was late. She didn’t want to deal with this. She had to get home to Roka. “I feel bad for showing up late. Come on, you can hang out with me, can’t you?”

She wanted to say no. She couldn’t say yes, she had Silena and Roka hanging out at home but it wasn’t like she couldn’t say that out loud.

But Luke continued. “Or, I could go to your place?” It almost looked like he was begging, but trying to be suave, and Ethan didn't fall for it at all. He always wanted to go to her place, but she would always shush him away because of her mother. Now, she figured he wanted to come because she had just gotten an apartment. She knew he wasn't looking for sex, but she just didn't want him going to her new apartment.

“Isn’t that a little past the first date, though?” Ethan asked, and Luke got that look in his eye that said: _seriously?_

Okay, well, yeah, they were obviously past the first date option -- literally their first ‘date’ ended in things that only people in serious relationships or flings do -- but _still_. There was five years of difference between them. She had every right to assume that she was going home.

Her mind didn’t want her to go with him. Her, on the other hand wanted to see how the night would turn out and… Well, Silena would be proud. Even if Silena wasn’t proud, she would be _proud_. That was how Silena was with her. She would definitely have the balls to scream all of her heart out at him, so that was probably one reason why her body wanted her to go with Luke (even if she probably wouldn’t yell at him anyway, but she was getting close). But she didn't even know if she could scream at him. She didn't know if she'd be able to. Her voice would probably die in her throat.

“Well, you can’t go to my apartment, Luke.” _I don’t want you seeing Roka just yet. If ever._ “I don’t have a couch for you to sleep on and there’s boxes everywhere, and it’s just a mess! I’d rather you not… I don’t even have any food in the fridge. So no. Not my place.” Ethan gave a little laugh.

Luke’s face deflated, and Ethan _hated_ seeing it because she knew that Luke wanted to see her before he left, and she was honestly pushing him away and why? Because he left five years ago? Because she was blaming him for something that he didn’t even know he had? She felt like Luke was just making the face on purpose, it was like what she did whenever she wanted something from her mother. She would pout and call her _momma_ instead of mother. Luke was basically doing the equivalent of what she did.

God, what was she doing? She didn't really know how to feel anymore.

Ethan sighed, and Luke came in close and hugged her, catching her off-guard. He smelled like sea salt, vanilla, and cologne. It was a nice smell, but it was different from the smell he had before California. Before the West Coast, he smelled like cinnamon, soap, and oranges. It was a weird combination, but Ethan loved it. Now she wasn’t sure how she felt about the new combo. It was weird. It was odd, and unusual and she wasn’t used to it, so she didn’t like it as much.

The girl slumped her shoulders and muttered out, “I’ll follow you in my car. Lead the way.” She was too tired to fight against him with this tonight.

Luke placed another kiss to her forehead, as if he were testing the waters between them and she really wished he hadn’t, because she was already upset by the fact that she was going to be hanging out at his hotel room. Or, she assumed he had a hotel room, because Lord knows he wouldn’t dare step foot in his old house. He hadn’t since he was of legal age to leave, and even then he ran away a few times when he was younger. But either way, she didn’t want him to test the waters. She wanted him to either leave the fucking ocean alone, or grab a surfboard and battle the waves that were occurring between them.

Weird. She hadn’t ever described herself as an ocean before. She liked that though, handling every wave whenever it was stormy or crystal clear on a nice day, and she probably sparkled. She wished she was an ocean. It would be a lot easier than anything else in the world.

Ethan glanced over at Luke, and saw him smiling at her before heading off to his car, his old black Mustang, and she sighed, noticing how he parked two cars down. “You still have the car?” she asked, finally letting herself grin at him, and she was able to see his breath as he laughed and smirked.

“Of course!” He patted the roof of the car twice before saying, “it’s my baby!” Ethan cringed. He didn’t seem to notice and he said, “just follow me, okay?” and ducked back into his car.

Ethan nodded her head and got into her own car, turning it on as soon as she could, because she was freezing. She turned the heat up and turned the radio down, so she could focus on seeing where his Mustang was going and not get distracted. She wished that he had told her the address of where he was at, but of course, Luke acted without thinking. He did that a lot. She just hated it, how he just went off without telling her where he was currently residing at. Whatever. She’d just have to follow after his car and hope for the best. She kept her eyes on his license plate as she drove, making sure she could at least see something of his black Mustang in the night.

She couldn’t stop thinking about him though. It was like he didn’t even care that he went to California, that he could just pick up the pieces where he left them and it wasn’t okay for him to do that. At least, to her it wasn’t. She was just getting played again. It’ll be five years ago all over again, especially since he was going to leave after the holidays were over.

She kept her hands tight on the wheel and tried with every fiber of her being not to turn around and go home. Why, she had no idea. But she followed him like he wanted -- like her gut conscious wanted -- and prayed for the best.

 

* * *

 

It was a hotel. It was definitely a hotel, one of the best hotels in the city, and Luke probably knew that. Luke’s wallet probably knew that too, but she wasn’t one to judge. Having a doctor and a lawyer as parents definitely meant that she didn’t know what that felt like. (Then again, when has she ever known what anything felt like?) Her mother just didn’t want to turn out spoiled, so she basically made the girl study with every wake of her moment until she was eighteen. And then, it finally took Roka to have Nemesis understand that babies need to be spoiled.

A certain pain arose in Ethan’s chest and she suddenly had her hands shake. How was Roka doing? Was he liking the apartment? What a lousy mother she was, not even being there with him on his first day in a new place. Oh God, oh God… When was she going to learn that she wasn’t eighteen again?

Nevertheless, Ethan followed Luke’s Mustang and parked next to him, getting out of her car with a small frown on her face. She should’ve gone home, offered a new idea of going out on a lunch date tomorrow or something instead of this. This was too much.

The blond grinned at her whenever he stepped out, too, but that smile faltered whenever he saw her frown. “Hey, it’ll be fine,” he said, but it felt like he was trying to tell himself that, and not her. Plus, he didn’t even know why she was freaking out. That wasn’t his fault, though. Either way, Ethan didn’t say a word and locked her car, following Luke to a door that was kind of hidden by some dead trees -- most, if not all, hotels had different entrances placed on the first level of the building. She felt herself hook her arm through his, which was odd but it was such a familiar feeling that she couldn’t help but do it since she was so close to him, walking into the building. She was scared, and honestly, she felt like Luke could just take it away. She could typically take it all away on her own, but she was just so close to him, it was hard to think. They stepped inside, and Ethan saw that it was like a typical hotel hallway, with expensive-looking green carpet, and she just honestly wanted to stay on the first floor so it was easier to leave, but Luke took her near the lobby of the building and clicked on the button for the elevator. Meaning he wasn’t on the first floor. Meaning that it would be more time consuming to leave using the elevator instead of just walking out.

It was quiet in the mirrored elevator, honestly, and that was how Ethan wanted it to be. She didn’t really know why she agreed to coming back with him, but it just felt like something she needed to do. She stood in the corner like always, and quickly pulled out her phone and wanted to text Silena, but froze whenever she saw the background of her and Roka and locked it again. She felt her throat close up. She’d have to text Silena about coming home at a later time and to see if Roka himself could have a sleepover with Chere at their house or something. But she couldn’t do it with Luke being so close to her, with him possibly peering over her shoulder. He had interlocked his hand with hers earlier, so she couldn’t have him see the kid he had no idea about or the picture of her and their kid on her background in front of him. She also couldn't text Silena and ask her to take Roka back to her house. What if he saw?

She didn’t want this to take the whole night, but from the looks of it, it seemed like that was what Luke was planning it to be. Ethan couldn’t blame him, he just probably wanted to see her before he _left_ _again_ , but whatever. She could at least handle that, couldn’t she? That’s all he wanted. Then again, she didn’t want him to move to California in the first place. She sighed and Luke looked over at her.

"You okay?"

She gave him a slight smile. "Just peachy."

They made it up to the eleventh floor, and with one look Ethan could tell that Luke was grinning. They walked down the hall whenever the blond suddenly turned at a door labeled 1125 and started digging through his coat pocket for the key. Ethan stood behind him a bit wearily, peeking over his shoulder to see if the card worked; when it did, she walked in behind him, taking in the smell of the hotel room. It had been a while since she had been in a hotel (two years, actually, whenever Silena and Beckendorf had gotten married) and she had forgotten how much she loved it. She loved hotel rooms. They were one of her favorite things, and she loved being in them. Luke’s hotel room itself was basically mahogany wood, if she had to pick her favorite thing that stood out. Wood and marble. Nice, dark wood with white marble. It reminded her of her new apartment, and guilt rose up in her.

She would have to get away soon so she could text Silena. Maybe the bathroom? Maybe. Yeah, maybe that would work. Ethan took off her coat and ran her hand through her hair. “Um, I’m gonna go take off my makeup,” she said as Luke sat down on the couches by the television, and she watched as he grabbed the hotel phone. He nodded without looking at her as he dialed. She made her way into the bedrooms, that was sectioned off by french doors, and turned a corner to get to the bathroom. She closed the door behind her and locked it, and it was quiet before she heard Luke’s voice faintly talking to someone.

Memories of hearing him turn down the New York publishing company flooded back into her mind and she was so plagued by it that she probably didn’t even need to wipe her own mascara and eyeliner off, her tears were good enough. God, what was wrong with her? It was like she couldn’t even hear him talking on the phone without thinking of the time he turned down a job that was close by.

She glared at herself in the mirror and opened her purse, grabbing the makeup remover wipes and thanking the Gods that she didn’t put on false lashes. Once the makeup on her face was removed, she put her eyepatch back on and threw away the wipes before wiping away any stray tears that might’ve come up again. She grabbed her phone from her purse and unlocked it, seeing the picture of Roka and her and those _damn_ tears came back. That didn’t happen often, because she was never away from her child unless it was work. Now, all of a sudden, she was getting apartments and going on dates and staying in hotels with Roka’s _father_. She was getting nails done and going on dinner dates and just overall being away from him and she hated it, especially now that she was at a hotel, with Luke, and not at the new apartment with her _baby_.

What would her mother say? Her mother never left her be, except for long nights, and even then she would wake her up in the middle of the night and tell her that she was home. Her father, on the other hand… Well, whatever. She didn’t care. Being a father was hard, but being a mother? Even harder. She hated this. She hated that she was being so cruel to Roka.

She thought about going home. She thought about leaving and explaining that she’ll just have to make it up again somehow, and going home. But her gut told her to stay there, to keep her hands tight on the ridge of the counter, on her phone; it told her to text Silena and tell her that she won’t be coming home.

And her gut was smarter than anything else that she had ever discovered, and so she went with it. Motherly instincts, huh? They might as well have not developed yet, since she felt like she wasn’t even doing a good job of mothering. She opened up the messaging app and clicked on Silena’s name, typing out: **_hey, i won’t be coming home tonight, take roka back to your place and you can chill and sleep there. sorry._ **

She glared at herself in the mirror again after putting her hair in a lazy braid, and on the marble her phone vibrated. She didn’t want to look at it. It was Silena:

**_no worries. x_ **

And then another:

**_also, you’re going to have to tell him about Roka soon. or vice versa. it’s gonna be good to get that off your chest, whether or not you think so. have fun girlie. i love you. don’t be afraid to get your freak on. ;)_ **

That first part hit her straight in the heart, and she could feel the tears well up, even with the humor of the last part. ‘Get your freak on’? Did anyone even say that anymore? And why would Silena think that she would get her freak on? They did more than just have sex, but she didn’t feel like correcting her. Maybe she was right. She was twenty-three years old. She was still ‘young’ as her mother would say. She could totally do that. But did she even want to? With Luke? She always had. Probably fucking will. Thinking that didn’t make the tears go away, either.

There was a knock on the door and a soft, “are you okay in there?” and Ethan guessed she must’ve been sniffling too loudly. Or crying too loudly. Suddenly, she was self-conscious about herself and she tried to hide her face from the mirror, and she put the package of makeup wipes back into her purse before zipping it up. She tried to not notice Luke’s book in there, too. It was still there. She could throw it away if she wanted, but she just… Couldn’t. She couldn’t do it, she hasn’t done it, even though she could.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Ethan said, trying to steady her voice even if there were tears dripping down her face. “I-I’m, um, okay.”

“You don’t sound so sure,” Luke again tried, and she could tell that he was leaning up against the door. “Can I come in?”

“I’m not having a breakdown in the bathroom, Luke.” She sounded a bit crazy, like she actually was having a breakdown in the bathroom (which was true). But why was he pushing it so much? Why did everyone push everything on her? Why couldn’t people just leave her be and let her live her sheltered life, where Luke was still in fucking California and she was in her new apartment with Roka?

She wanted to tell Roka. She wanted to tell Luke. She just… Couldn’t.

Funny. If her mother heard her say that, she’d be toast. Her mother believed she could do anything, and that had rubbed off onto her daughter, who she wanted to do what she could do. Ethan didn’t really work that way, but hey, whatever.

“Ethana,” Luke mumbled quietly, and the girl paused, looking at the door like she couldn’t just believe he called her by her full first name. Sure, Luke knew that her full first name was Ethana (how could he not?) but she made him swear never to say it. She just didn’t like it as much as she liked Ethan or Eth, but it had been a long time since she heard him say her full first name and it sounded… _Nice_. Maybe that was because she was actually having a breakdown in a hotel bathroom and everything that wasn’t her thoughts sounded nice, or maybe Luke saying her name was better than anything else in the world, besides Roka. “Can I come in?” He asked once more and she shuffled quietly and quickly toward the door, unlocking the door. She didn’t quite know why she did that, because she didn’t want comfort but maybe she _did_ , maybe she secretly needed all of the comfort she used to get from the fucking blond. She missed it.

And she hated him for it. Maybe. She didn’t know what to feel anymore. She wasn’t quite sure of anything, anyway. Luke opened the door, and Ethan booked it out of there, past him before he could see her face. God, she didn’t want him seeing her crying in his hotel bathroom, how shitty would that be? She didn’t need that.

She took a seat on the bed, the only bed in the room, and set her phone down on the nightstand and glared at the time. 9:30PM. It wasn’t that late. She could leave. She could go home, but her bones ached to stay there and leave in the morning so she wouldn’t have to leave with her mind preoccupied with worries. Though, she was sure that wasn’t going to change in the morning, because she was sure there were going to be more worries than she could count added onto the weight she was already carrying.

She kept her head down as Luke sat down in front of her, and she pulled her knees up to her chest. She felt like a fucking child. Luke didn’t seem to mind though, which was okay because that was the last thing that she needed to happen. “What’s wrong?” He asked, keeping his voice low and she shook her head, because where on Earth could she start? “Don’t do that, you’d do that all the time whenever we were dating.”

Ethan soured at the word _dating_ , because it brought back too many memories of talking like this at three in the morning, and she spat out, “maybe it’s because I have problems.”

“Then I want you to talk about your problems.” Luke grinned and stood up, holding out his hand. “Come on, let’s get you changed into something more comfortable, and I asked for champagne to be sent up, so we could have that, too.” Was that who he was talking to? God, she was so stupidly blind, no irony intended. Room service. People at the front desk in the lobby. Duh. Why did she think that he was talking to someone else? Was she really that paranoid?

She took his hand and let him lead her to the drawers where he had put his pants and pajamas and things in, since she figured he had to be here for a while. Who knew whenever he got here? Though, she could probably trace it back on his Instagram.

He handed her some basketball shorts and a gray t-shirt, and she took them both knowing that she probably wouldn’t even sleep with the shorts on anyway. But she’ll still wear them.

“Go get changed, and then we’re talking. I don’t even care about what, but I hope you can always know that you can always talk to me.” Luke said, and then ushered her to the bathroom. Ethan couldn’t help but let out a jittery laugh. She was bound to make this night better, somehow, because she felt like she's already messed it up. And apparently, so did he and so it seemed like he was determined too. Too bad he didn’t know how hard that was going to be.


	13. [12] 3am and no sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you remember whenever we snuck out into the middle of the night and went to Long Island Sound? I slipped on the white foam--”  
> “White crest of the wave.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for key who had been so patient, eagerly waiting to know about everything after chapter 11 :)

Luke was desperate to make it work. Ethan was sure of that. Whenever she sat back on the bed in her spot that she claimed as hers, Luke was quick to join her after getting the door, and he was the one that poured the champagne before handing a glass to her. She wasn’t much of a big alcoholic-beverage drinker (she barely had any alcohol at holidays or anything -- her mother would always tease her for drinking sparkling grape juice instead of wine) but she still took it and drank sips of it. Luke joined her, sitting across from her rather than to her side, up against the headboard. It was oddly quiet, and Ethan could hear the outside world roaming around like it always did, and she wondered if Roka was okay.

How could she tell Luke her problems if he didn’t even know about half of them?

He didn’t know about Roka, and she doubted that she’d even want him to know. She’d gone five years without him knowing, what’s another five years more? Though, the more she thought about that, the more that she knew she was going to have to tell him. She was already a bad mother to Roka for not telling, what kind of person would she be if she didn’t tell the father he had a child? And Luke was perfectly capable of raising a child, even if as a child he was fucked up. She felt like he would be a good father, even if he did leave for California, even if he was an asshole.

Ethan wrapped her arms around herself after putting the champagne back on the table, and looked at Luke with a confused look. He said to talk, but the only thing they’ve talked about is how good the chocolate cake that Ethan brought with her must be. “We could taste it,” the black-haired girl said, and sprang up from the bed before Luke could grab her arm and tell her to get it later. She was going to get it now, and they were going to eat it together, on the bed. Because she didn’t give a fuck about anything else but that cake, and maybe that was a good thing. It was easy to focus on one thing instead of a million things, and she was trying hard to focus on that one double chocolate cake that was in a Styrofoam box, in the fridge with two forks beside it. She grabbed it from the little fridge and headed back over to the bed, opening the box before Luke had his say in anything. She offered a fork to Luke, which he took and they started eating the cake before anyone could say anything. That was how Ethan wanted it. Well, until Luke had to ruin everything.

“Why were you crying in the bathroom?” He asked, and Ethan wanted to scream. Wanted to run. It was like her flight response was going haywire. “And don’t tell me that there isn't a reason, because I know that isn’t true.”

Ethan looked at everything but him. “It’s just because of my problems, okay?” Her voice was starting to get cold, but if Luke noticed, he didn't say a word.

“So tell me about them.”

A bitter laugh rose up out of her throat as she mocked him and said, “you aren’t my therapist.” Luke obviously noted the venom that had came out in her tone of voice and he looked surprised, looked upset and Ethan hated it. She hated the guilt that she felt in her, like her stomach was twisting and turning in on itself. “I’m just angry because you don’t even know half of the shit I’ve been through and I don’t really want to explain it to you. Just drop it, okay?”

“Well, that’s a start.”

The girl's eyes connected with his. “Luke, I’m going to hit you if you say one more thing that a therapist would say.” Ethan glanced at him, her eye narrowing as the blond boy laughed. “Why are you doing that? Why are you laughing?” She felt like he was mocking her. She felt like he was just as careless as he was five years ago and it pissed her off.

“Do it, then.”

The words caused Ethan to blink, because he wanted her to _hit_ him? Wasn’t that a little violent? Why on Earth would she ever want to hit him? She didn't want to hit him. Never in her life had she ever wanted to hit him. Why was he all of a sudden allowing her to do so?

Luke grinned again, even turned his cheek. He was mocking her. “I know you’re angry, but I want you to get your anger out so we can actually talk instead of it being like trying to talk to a teenager who's going through puberty. Go ahead. Just hit me, but not in the eye, okay? I have a meeting tomorrow at noon.”

“I’m not gonna hit you,” Ethan spat out, because she was starting to get that little flare up in her throat. She was angry. He was comparing her to a teenager going through puberty? What a fucking asshole. “Because if I do," she continued, "I will hit you in the eye and you’ll have to wear an eyepatch, just like me.” There were a few more words that came out of her mouth but they were covered up from the stifled laughter of Luke, who was probably laughing at her eyepatch joke, and before she could really make sense of it her muscles were moving faster and she heard the crack of her joints in her fingers popping as she connected with Luke’s jaw.

The blond had almost fallen off the bed from the amount of force and he moved his hand up to quickly assess his jaw. Ethan, on the other hand, scrambled up to him and was also checking his face, apologizing rapidly for actually hitting him in the fucking _jaw_. All that Luke could say was, “good hit,” and that didn’t really make her feel better. In fact, it just really made her feel worse and she started to whine, and Luke giggled and rested his forehead against hers. “It’s fine, Eth, it’s fine, I’m fine,” he said and it felt like she was eighteen again, how they were sitting and how she was close to him and she loved it. “Now can we eat the cake and talk?”

And to that, knowing that Luke was going to call her out on it (because Marie Antoinette hadn’t really said it) Ethan replied, “ _qu'ils mangent de la brioche_.”

Luke grinned at her and said, “you know she didn’t really say that.”

“Just shut up and eat your cake.”

Luke laughed and Ethan returned to her spot, pressing her back up against the headboard of the bed. She really didn't feel better about the whole situation, Luke's jaw hadn't bruised but his ego was. She felt bad, she felt terrible for succumbing to her anger and actually hitting the guy she fucking loved. Even if she didn't want to admit that little part out. “So will you just tell me why you were crying over your problems?” The blond asked quietly as he took a bite of the chocolate cake and she internally cringed because why couldn’t he just ask about the weather instead? Why did they have to talk about loaded questions?

“You wouldn’t understand, and I’m not ready to tell you about them yet.” Ethan responded in the most adult-like way and even though she knew that he knew that she was closing up, he didn’t push her. He didn’t give any sign that he wanted to know beyond that besides from an arched eyebrow. “Five years does some things to people, some things that you don’t know about.” Now it was her turn to watch him visibly cringe, because she knew how bad he felt, or at least she hoped he felt bad. But it was odd, and she hated doing that to him. Sure, it felt empowering, but that was before she actually socked him in the face. Now she just hated hurting him in any way. And that was terrible because she was hurting, too.

“Okay, okay, I’ll accept that.” Luke mumbled, finishing off the last of his champagne, leaving the little bit of cake left for her. She quickly ate it, and the blond threw the box and the forks away before joining her on the bed again. “But whenever you want to tell me, you know you can always tell me.” Luke looked at her with such a promise in his eyes that she actually had to look away from him. She felt exhausted, honestly, just being with a person and having to share nothing with them was tiring. Especially when that person knew nothing. She could tell him. She could tell him right now, but she wasn’t sure how well that would go down. Would she even want to tell him now? Silena was right, it would clear up a lot between them but she honestly couldn’t.

There was a hand that swiped across her vision and she shook her head a bit, turning to look at the blond.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Luke asked, and Ethan nodded her head. It was sweet of him to ask, but maybe that was only because she’s already had one breakdown already, he couldn’t possibly want another. Wait. What was she doing? She was sure that if she were to have a breakdown that Luke would be fine with it, he'd make her feel better. She’s had plenty of breakdowns in front of him in the past, she’s just being sour apparently. Luke continued looking at her with a certain expression in his eyes that it made it hard _not_ to have a breakdown. He isn't the bad guy.

“Yes,” Ethan nodded once more and Luke shifted closer to her. It was quiet for a few moments, but then Luke grinned.

“Hey... Do you remember whenever we snuck out into the middle of the night and went to Long Island Sound? I took you out and you looked so cute in your little one-piece... We were just bored so we decided to have some fun, and the waves were rolling. The whole thing was pretty nice, don't you think?” He asked and the girl could feel her breath getting caught in her throat. She knew exactly where this was going and she didn’t have time for this. But Luke didn’t seem to notice, or maybe he was just trying to make her feel better by reminding her of good times, but honestly it seemed to haunt her. She knew exactly where this was going. She nodded anyway. “Well, until I slipped on the white foam and you started dying laughing--”

“White crest of the wave,” Ethan interrupted, and Luke blinked once, and then twice over at her. “That's what that white foam is. _Roka_. It means 'white crest of the wave' in Japanese.”

She was hoping that would mean something to him, but of course it didn’t because how on earth would he know? He just nodded his head. “Oh! That’s cool, I didn’t know that. Remember how you tried to teach me Japanese and it ended up with me in a headlock and papers everywhere?” Of course she did. She wasn't the greatest teacher whenever she was teaching a twenty-something year old man who just wouldn't get the words right.

Ethan didn’t even try and laugh, even though she wanted to. She had gotten so frustrated that she put him into a headlock, sending the papers and books trying to teach him flying off of the desk and it was funny. She was just upset. She knew why she was so upset, because he had indirectly used that shitty memory in his shitty book whenever he didn’t even know the importance of it. But that wasn’t his fault.

“Yeah, it was funny,” she tried giving him a nervous laugh and he had definitely caught the change of mood.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay, I’m just tired.”

Luke nodded and without permission Ethan sighed a little and sunk down into the covers, hiding her limbs away in the white comforter and sheets. The blond took that as a sign to get up and turn on a little fan on his desk. She tried not to mind it, since she knew how much he loved white noise while sleeping (seriously, he can’t sleep without it) and the blond dimmed the lights down before sitting back down in the bed. Ethan wiggled out of the basketball shorts as Luke turned the television on and she tossed them out from underneath the blankets, turning on her side and curling in on herself.

Luke turned the volume down, which she was thankful for because she knew how much of a night owl he was. “I’m just going to work, okay?” The blond asked, and Ethan mumbled out a small incoherent noise, took her eyepatch off and flung it across the room, too. She’ll find it in the morning. She then heard some typing noises, meaning that he was working on his computer and she found that to be oddly mesmerizing, because that was how some nights would go whenever they were together. She’d be all cuddled up underneath the sheets and he’d be typing away at some draft of some nightmare he’d created in his dreams.

She never really thought she’d be back in the same position, years later. And she never really thought she’d love it just as much.

After thinking that, the trouble of getting to sleep seemed to be a bit better, and hours later whenever she felt Luke’s warmth curl up against her back, she felt a bit better. The only thing that was missing was Roka.

She woke up after that.

 

* * *

 

 

Tossing and turning late at night was not Ethan’s forte, but she missed Roka too much that she didn’t care. She couldn’t get to sleep. She couldn’t stand the light that Luke had left on (and she couldn’t stand the fact that she had to get up to turn it off, but she did that anyway). She climbed back into bed, sliding down the headboard until she was comfortable and glanced at the blond next to her, and couldn’t help but feel her heart beat quicken whenever he had curled up to her again, like he knew that she had finally returned. His head was resting on her stomach, one arm laid out across her hips and the other wrapped around her back. How he was comfortable like that was beyond her, but she actually enjoyed it, and she turned the lamp on her nightstand on quietly to get a picture.

Luckily, he was able to lay still and stay asleep, and she managed to take a selfie with one hand running through his hair. She might as well get back at him for taking that picture of her in the restaurant. She turned the lamp off and tapped on her Instagram app, noticing how people were saying stuff like ‘goals ♥’ and ‘this is so cute’ and other things that were tagged with her and Luke, but she didn’t recognize the picture that they were commenting on. She’ll get to that later.

Ethan uploaded the picture, the description saying just what she was feeling ( _‘3am and no sleep, and this guy is cuddling my stomach. what a loser’_ ) and maybe it was a bit sarcastic, but still. She liked it and she tagged him in it and uploaded it anyway. She then went to investigate just who was telling her ‘goals’ and found that she was tagged in three pictures, all posted by a certain Luke Castellan.

She clicked on the third one, the one after the restaurant post, and it was just a picture of her curled away in the blanket, sleeping. She could see her scar from her deformed eye, and she was sleeping with her mouth open, her knuckle of her thumb pressed to her lips. She actually looked really peaceful, it was weird. She didn’t look tired or exhausted. Ethan read the caption and sighed a bit as she read:

 ** _@mrlukecastellan_ ** _: ethana nakamura? more like sleeping beauty, amiright? :)_

He posted it three hours ago. She took a screenshot before going to the next post, which was posted two hours ago, and she took a screenshot of that one, too. It was again of her, but she was in a different position, turned toward Luke and he managed to get a selfie of him and his computer with her in the picture. There was another caption, and it actually made Ethan grin more than she wanted to admit, which was funny because there wasn’t anything in there like the first one.

 ** _@mrlukecastellan_ ** _: working. fighting sleep. so wanting to be her right now… look at her, being lucky and sleeping. #sojealous_

She rolled her eyes, liked the post, took a screenshot and went to the next one, which just was another selfie that he took, but that time he was curled up next to her, and he looked tired while she looked peaceful. It was weird, she hadn’t seen him that tired in a while, but maybe that was because he stayed up until one in the morning working. She scrolled down for the description, but there was only the sleeping emoji and a _goodnight_. She took a screenshot of that one and put her phone back down, continuing to run her hands through Luke’s hair.

She ran her fingers over the scar he had, too, over his left eye. It was so late, and yet she still remembered how he told her that he had gotten into a car accident when he was younger. She ran her fingers over the place she had socked him, feeling guilty. She tried not to touch that anymore.

She stared into space as she moved her hands from his scar to his hair, back and forth, and didn’t look away until she felt him stir a bit. There was a tiny, almost incoherent, “Ethana?” that rang in the quiet room (well, besides for the fan).

“Why do you always call me that?” Ethan muttered, sliding down in the bed a bit more, until Luke had to readjust and rest his head on her chest. She hoped he couldn’t hear her heartbeat speed up. It felt like whenever they were together again, which made her sad but it still... It still was bittersweet to think about, being that close to him and not having him know anything in the world about Roka.

“It’s your name, isn’t it?” he mumbled, and Ethan rolled her eyes, running her hand through his hair as she told him to go to bed. He just continued to mumble out random shit that Ethan only half-listened to, because she too tired to make words out of his incoherent speech.

And then, she basically passed out after that, with Luke curled up to her like everything was fine.


	14. [13] does it ever drive you crazy [just how fast the night changes?]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As soon as it came though, it had ended with Ethan pulling away and a sharp, “I would never hurt you.” _I would never hurt you like you hurt me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for keeeeeeyyyy because he's awesome and wowza he's the best person ever ♥

Ethan woke up to nothing.

No alarm clock, no children running around and bouncing on the floor or the bed, _nothing_. She woke up to nothing and it freaked her out a bit. The only sound she was able to hear was a soft snoring that was coming from beside her and the sound of the streets being alive at whatever early time it was, which was typical for New York but still strange nevertheless. She felt at peace for once in a long time, even with waking up so early in the night and having bad dreams. She turned around and saw Luke, still sleeping and he actually looked peaceful instead of dead tired like he was last night in those photos.

Were those even real? Those photos he took? The selfie she took? Anything? Was anything real?

She reached over and grabbed her phone, looking at the time ( _8:23AM_ ) before looking at her notifications that had flooded her phone. Silena had apparently tried calling her three times and that worried her because what if something happened to Roka? She had also gotten messages from Silena and her mother, meaning that she was more scared for her life than she should’ve been. She opened the messages, reading her mother’s first and they were just about her wanting to come over in a few days to go Christmas shopping for the family. She quickly texted back that it would be fine, that she would actually like that, and then she went over to Silena’s messages, dreading the worst. But whenever she got there, there wasn’t anything to be dreading. It was just a bunch of heart emojis from three in the morning and then a good morning text she sent at seven AM. She didn’t even want to know what the calls were about.

Ethan grinned and texted back _good morning_ , sending a smiley face emoji with it before heading to her gallery. She looked at her screenshots, looking them over and by that point she knew they were real. She even went to Instagram and checked them. She had it. She had the selfie she took of her with Luke sleeping on her stomach, she had it in her possession and she couldn’t help but grin. She saw how Silena commented on her Instagram picture with a bunch of heart-eye emojis, with the word ‘goals’ following after it and Ethan rolled her eyes.

She headed over to her Snapchat and took a morning selfie, her bangs covering up her bad eye. After all of those years, she was still self conscious of it and she hated it, but her eyepatch was all away across the room by the wall and she wasn’t going to get up and get it whenever she had Luke curled up into her back. She also made sure that she got Luke in the selfie, too, because she was determined to get him in as many pictures as she could. She didn’t know why, she just felt obliged to do it. He took two of her, not including at the restaurant, so why couldn’t she?

She posted it to Snapchat, feeling a little bit relieved and she closed out of the app before she could second guess herself.

And it didn’t help that she posted it on Instagram too, adding a description of ‘ _look at this sleepyhead, that’s what you get for staying up late_ **_@mrlukecastellan_** ’ before uploading it and closing out of the app. She was sure Silena was soaking this all in like the love struck hopeless romantic that she was and Ethan couldn’t be too far behind, could she? She was honestly loving this moment of him being so close to her. It was like she was eighteen again and she didn’t want it to end, because as soon as they get up and get back to their normal lives, she’s going to be twenty-three and he’ll be going back to California after the holidays. She would get back to Roka and work and he would get back to work and the sunshine, all of the things that California had that New York apparently didn’t have. She’ll go back to sleepless nights and he’ll go back to sleepless nights too, but they’ll both be for different reasons and she hated it. She hated this.

When did it end? _Where_ did it end?

She pushed her back into his chest a little bit more and her hair was probably in his face, but she didn’t care. She needed that night, and honestly, no matter how reluctant she was, she was glad that she finally had this. She was glad Luke even thought of the idea. She wouldn’t dare say those words aloud, but she was still glad. Would she want Roka there with her? Of course, but how could he be there if Luke didn’t even know he existed?

Oh God, what was happening to her?

She felt Luke’s arms tighten around her waist and she sighed, and Luke lifted his head up lazily. “What time is it?” he asked quietly and whenever she didn’t answer for a moment, he placed his head back down onto the silk pillows, pressing his cheek up against the back of her neck.

“It’s close to eight thirty,” Ethan answered back and Luke once again lifted his head up. He seemed surprised, but more full of energy than he was twenty seconds ago, like he had _just_ woken up. Ethan almost let the idea of him kicking her out early enter her mind, because what if he had some other chick? “What is it?” She asked hesitantly, not wanting the answer to be 'you need to leave'.

“We gotta go get breakfast,” Luke said, finally awake and buzzing around like Roka. He even sat up and turned her quickly so that she was flat on her back, looking up at him instead of on her side. He grinned at her. “We gotta go get breakfast, they’re serving free breakfast and I’m starving.”

“You’re just like Roka, I swear,” Ethan said before she could stop herself, and Luke arched an eyebrow. Noticing his confusion, she was quick to lie about it. “He was just this guy I used to know, he used to live with us. He always would jump on Silena’s bed, and then mine, asking for breakfast.” The lie wasn’t really far off, either. “It was like, freshman year of college, or something.”

Ethan couldn’t help but roll her eye when Luke brushed it off as something he didn’t know until he started to repeat his sentences as he started to tickle her sides and she laughed, trying to get him to stop. He did eventually stop and he was practically sitting on her, his hands extended like he was pausing but was ready to attack at any moment. There was something endearing about that, but something was also embarrassing about it too -- he was sitting on her in his shirt and boxers, and she was basically wearing the same thing that he was. She didn’t have pants on. He was straddling her hips and tickling her and it sucked because how long was this going to last? They were already acting like a couple, tickling and sleeping and posting cute stuff on Instagram about the other person. Oh God, why did she do this?

There was a moment of solid eye contact before Luke leaned down, and Ethan would never ever admit that she leaned up too, and their lips caught in an awkward kiss. It was like they were just testing how things would go, testing the waters, and after a few seconds they pulled apart, glancing at each other. Just like that, the entire room felt thick, dense, like it knew that kiss was going to be awkward as hell. She wondered if Luke felt as awkward as she did after that, but if he did, it wasn’t known because he quickly climbed off of her, heading over to his dresser and struggled to get dressed. He apparently was shaking too hard and Ethan could see his cheeks were a bright red every time he turned to grab something. To clear the tension in the room, Ethan let out a nervous laugh whenever Luke almost fell putting his pants on.

Ethan slowly, but surely, excused herself and went into the bathroom to get dressed. She put on her pants, the weird leather leggings, and contemplated wearing the same shirt she wore yesterday. But, she didn’t really want to. She wanted to keep his t-shirt on and so she did, even though she’d be freezing downstairs in the lobby. She was glad she was wearing a sports bra to sleep, because then she didn't have to deal with putting an actual bra on. She slipped her shoes on her feet and didn’t even bother putting on makeup besides her eyebrows and some mascara, because who knows where they’ll go after breakfast and who’ll they’ll see. Luke was unpredictable like that, and since he was a famous author, it might be someone important.

She headed back out into the room and saw Luke sitting down on the bed, staring out the window. It was a nice picture, him just sitting there and staring out like he was lost, and she almost wanted to capture it. She quickly put her eyepatch on and headed to where he was sitting, immediately noticing the bruise that had formed by his jaw. She tilted his head out of the way, the caring side in her showing through as she inspected the bruise.

“Luke, how hard did I hit you?” Ethan said and it was enough to pull him out of his trance. He stared at her for a second, probably confused on what to say. He had been running his hands through his hair. It looked nice. “I-I…”

Luke instead gave her a lopsided grin and shrugged it off (which made her feel even worse). “Nah, it’s fine. You got a great punch, seriously not what I expected from a tiny girl like you. But it’s fine. You got your anger out in one punch and I’ve been hit a few times in fights. It’s all good. But if you hit me again…” he trailed off, but Ethan put her hands on her hips.

“I can’t believe I hit you this time, what makes you think I’m gonna hit you again?” Ethan hissed, leaning down a bit to get eye level with him. “I’d rather hit myself.” She made eye contact, hoping that would be enough, but Luke just gave a lazy grin.

“I don’t know, you probably wanted to hit me every time I brought up the _eye’m sorry_ story--”

The black-haired girl was the one to initiate the second kiss between them, and maybe it was just to get her point across that she hated hurting him (it wasn’t fair) or that it was her body telling her she was screwed, but it didn’t matter. She interrupted him with a kiss. They were kissing. It felt more natural that time. The first one was probably too awkward since _he was on top of her_ , but whatever. God, she needed to stop. As soon as it came though, it had ended with Ethan pulling away and a sharp, “I would never hurt you.”

 _I would never hurt you like you hurt me_. She wanted to say that, but she was sure that she wouldn't get a response because he probably didn't know how much he hurt her, especially if he didn't know his child was at home.

She pulled away quickly and stood up just as fast, spinning around and making a rush toward the door. “Come on, it’s time for breakfast.” Luke hazily followed after her, grabbing his wallet and his key to get back in, and the two made their way to the elevators.

There was silence between them and Ethan hated it so much that she wanted to beg for someone to bring up something. Maybe even a fight, that would work. She just wanted there to be something between them so it wasn’t just… _quiet_. Silence. That’s all she wanted whenever she first arrived there and now that it was real, she didn’t want it anymore. What was she even doing with herself? She was probably going crazy.

Well, she was already crazy, but crazy enough to kiss a guy -- her kid’s _father_ \-- again only to have him leave after New Years? That was very crazy.

Luke looked over at Ethan and she was only able to tell because she felt him watching her and she couldn’t help but look back over at him, desperate to start a conversation. Weird, it was like she went from not wanting to say a word to wanting him to say something, wanting her to say something. She just wanted _someone_ to say _something_.

“So what kind of breakfast things do they have downstairs?” Ethan asked, going with it and refusing to back down since she was already halfway through the question whenever she realized it wasn’t a good enough question. Asking him what the hotel had for breakfast didn’t do five years any justice. But it wasn’t like she couldn’t just ask, ‘ _why did we do relationship things? Why did you kiss me?_ ’ because then she would never get an answer.

Or, maybe she would, but it just wouldn’t be the thing that she wanted to hear. And honestly, she was also the one to blame, too. She kissed him. She posted about him on Instagram. She did all the things that he did and she was even wearing his tee shirt. If she asked, she would just be asking herself and _she_ had no idea why she did it. It just felt natural enough and even though it felt like they were dating, Luke had still kept his distance. Well, besides whenever they went to bed and whenever they kissed but other than that, it was okay for starters.

“Just the typical things, like any hotel would,” Luke responded back and Ethan nodded her head, because even though she knew the answer to that question -- _seriously, what the fuck Ethan?_ \-- she still pretended like she didn’t know so that the both of them didn’t feel stupid. Or, so she wouldn’t feel like that. Because she did feel pretty stupid already.

“I-I’m sorry…” Ethan mumbled.

She had seen out of the corner of her eye that Luke had looked at her with a little more raw emotion than she had expected from him, even if he covered it up with, “no worries. Sometimes whenever you aren’t in a hotel for a while you forget what’s being served for breakfast… Plus, shouldn't I be the one saying _eye'm sorry_?” He grinned at her and she rolled her eye, playfully punching his arm.

It was like he knew why she was apologizing -- which was weird, because she didn’t know why she was apologizing, it just felt natural to say -- but it was like he wasn’t going to admit that he knew exactly what she was talking about. Honestly, she expected that from him. He always seemed to know things before she did, but that was because Luke was just better at reading people. She wondered if he was reading her right now -- and he probably was. She just hoped he couldn’t read too much. She always had some kind of wall built around her and even if she did have a breakdown, there were still guards up. She never broke down in front of anyone besides Silena a few times. And well, him.

Ethan kept her eye on him, watching him out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t know how to feel about this morning after that kiss that happened. But it happened and there wasn’t anything she could do to get rid of it. The part that sucked the most was she was contemplating on kissing him again. The elevator opened and Luke walked out, forcing the girl to move quickly to catch up with him.

“H-Hey! Wait up, Mr. Long Legs.” Ethan said harshly in order to get his attention and he turned around with his eyes wide.

“Sorry.” He apologized, giving her a small grin, but Ethan doesn’t want to look too much into it. Her head was pounding too much. “Come on, let’s go get some breakfast, yeah?” She nodded, despite the headache forming. She noticed that he walked at a slower pace, just to be on the right side of her and that didn’t make the headache better.

 

* * *

 

Breakfast was awkward. Luke had gotten them a two-seat table in the middle of the room with the television far away so it was like they couldn’t even focus on that. There wasn’t even another TV closer to them. It was like he purposely set it up to where they would either talk or eat in silence. Both of which Ethan was okay with, even though with the headache she was starting to prefer the latter. Though, strangely enough, she wished that they could talk, just so she wasn’t in silence.

Luke had set his stuff down and Ethan did the same, watching as the blond took a seat in one of the chairs. “Go ahead and get something, I’ll save our spot.”

Ethan nodded her head and spun on her heels, turning around and going toward the assortment of breakfast items. There were waffle irons, hot pots with eggs, bacon, sausages, and gravy in them. There were plenty of cereal options, milk options, syrup options for the pancakes and waffles, and there was an assortment of fruits laid out on the back wall. Ethan grabbed a pancake with some butter, poured a little maple syrup on it and grabbed strawberries and cantaloupe pieces from the back wall. She made sure to grab a drink (orange juice) and some utensils before making her way back over to Luke.

The blond smiled whenever he saw her, which made Ethan’s stomach flutter. It was like she was eighteen again and seeing any sort of smile and encouragement on his face made her ecstatic. She really had no reason to have butterflies in her stomach, but it was like they were there on a temporary vacation like Luke was. Thinking that made her bitter. She took her seat and watched as Luke got up, saying something to her before walking off.

Ethan, not knowing what he had said, started to eat the fruit pieces she had picked. After a few minutes of eating and trying to figure out what the weatherman was talking about on the screen twelve feet away from her -- it really wasn’t fair that she was half blind _and_ nearsighted -- Luke returned with two waffles on his plate, both covered in grape jelly.

“You still eat waffles like that?” She asked, arching her eyebrow over at him. He shrugged and gave a sly smile, cutting up a piece of waffle and stabbed it with his fork, holding it over the table to her.

“Try it,” he grinned and Ethan felt a little _deja vu_ from last night. Either way, she took him up on his offer and eat the piece of waffle he had on his fork. It really was good, but she’s had it like that before. He had made her try it before, early one morning whenever she was at his apartment and they decided they were going to be the greatest waffle makers in the world. She had liked it back then and even now the taste brought her back to that moment of them, sitting on the counter and eating a stack of waffles.

Once it was over with, Ethan kept her gaze on Luke as he returned to eating, cutting up more pieces with the edge of his fork.

She had nothing much to say, besides everything going on inside of her head, but that would be useless at a time like this. It was too public in there. She needed to do it in her apartment. She ate in silence and kept her eyes on everything but him. He was starting to pick up on that and she could feel him watching her more and more the more time passed.

There was an all too familiar sound that rang in Ethan’s ears, made her go alert, and she straightened her back, looking around for the source. There was a child, around the age of Roka who was crying at a nearby table. The toddler that was crying had apparently dropped something of his food, which was a weekly occurrence with Roka. The child wailed, disrupting the mood of the hotel dining area. As soon as the child calmed down though, Ethan could finally feel her muscles relax and her posture began to slouch. She really thought she was at home and her baby was crying. She almost got up to go check if the toddler was okay so her muscles could relax and the child would be happy again, but clearly just going alert was not the best thing to do in front of someone who doesn’t know she had a child. “You okay?”

“Huh?” Ethan asked, looking at the blond who had asked the question. “Oh. Yeah, I’m okay,”

Luke didn’t look too convinced but he shrugged and said, “it was like you went into full mother alert mode, just like the actual mother,” before he continued to eat. He continued to look at her and Ethan had to give a sheepish laugh to make sure he didn’t catch on to anything.

“All females are like that, I guess,”

Breakfast was awkward.

 

* * *

 

Walking back up to the hotel room was awkward. Hell, it was awkward leaving the hotel because Ethan knew Luke wanted a kiss whenever she was out in the hallway and he was still inside the room, underneath the corridor of the door. She knew he wanted a kiss again, but she also knew that he didn’t want to make it awkward either and so he didn’t attempt to kiss her. Which, she was glad for. She didn’t know what she would do if he did kiss her again. Luke had also wanted her to stay for a little bit longer, just a tiny bit longer, and while she really, really would’ve wanted to just so she could actually speak her mind, her brain was telling her to tell him no, that she’s busy today. "I should probably get going," she said to him, but that didn't mean she couldn't give him a hug. Ethan naturally wasn't the hugging type of girl, but she figured Luke had wanted one and she always hugged him. He was a hugging type of person, one that touches and feels. Ethan wasn't.

What’s even more awkward? Well, Luke had forgotten -- or maybe he didn’t -- that Ethan was wearing his shirt.

Luke had hugged her, resting his chin on the top of her head. "Maybe we could do this again sometime soon?"

Without thinking, she responded, "how about tomorrow night? I should be settled into my apartment then," and Luke grinned, mumbling something about how he'll message her about it soon, and she pulled away from the hug. She tried not to think about how Luke pressed his lips against her cheek, and she tried not to think about how the butterflies in her stomach were fluttering.

She made her way down to the elevator after saying a little goodbye, made her way into the car and called Silena immediately. What did she do? Why did she speak without thinking? That's what used to get her in trouble. That's what got her into this mess, and now she was just diving head first into the pool of regret. She waited for Silena to pick up the phone. She’d have to pick up Roka anyway.

The ringer played five times before the girl actually picked up, which made her nervous. “Hey, cutie.” Silena said over the line, and Ethan pressed her phone to her cheek with one hand, the other hand on the wheel.

“Hey.” Silena could probably tell something was wrong with the way she sounded, but that was for her to worry about. She didn’t know how she felt. She just felt numb. “I have things to tell you whenever I get home, I’m heading there right now. Meet me at my apartment with Roka?”

Silena paused, told something to someone off to the side, and returned back to the phone. “Bad or good?”

Ethan hummed as an answer. It really was both, but she couldn’t tell her that. She didn’t know what to do, but she wanted to get home and tell Silena everything over a bottle of chocolate milk, to be honest.

“Okay, babe,” Silena said and Ethan hung up the phone, tossing the device onto the passenger’s seat. She was so tired. She shouldn’t have woken up at three in the morning. She shouldn’t have even gone to Luke’s place. She was just so tired, mentally and physically.

Luckily she made it home without any problems, and she took her purse and her phone up to the elevator and she felt claustrophobic all the way up to her apartment.


	15. [14] takeout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You aren’t an idiot,” she said, squeezing her shoulder, “you’re just in love, that’s all.”  
> “I can’t decide which is worse.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this has been so long overdue! I've been on writer's block for this fic and it's been terrible :(  
> for Key because he's still so awesome heck yea

Coming home was an adventure, one Ethan loved and hated at the same time. She was coming home to see her baby, Roka, to see her _child_ , who she should’ve been there with in the first place, but she was also leaving behind Luke. Luke, who she kissed and acted like a couple with. Luke, who probably wanted her back more than ever but how would that even work? Especially with him living in California and them having a child that he didn’t know about? Not to mention the five years between them that definitely changed them.

But Ethan was tired of how things worked out. She was tired of just everything at the moment. Riding up in the elevator didn’t help, it actually made her stomach twist up more the higher she went up. Whenever she got her keys out and stepped inside, she started to cry.

She started bawling immediately. The living room and kitchen weren’t completely full of boxes of Roka’s or her stuff. The living room had some things set up and the kitchen had been lightly decorated. She assumed that when she was gone, Silena went shopping for things and decorated as much as she could. There was a couch in the living room and a few stools for the table, and one of Roka’s play castles had been set up in the corner to probably keep him distracted while Silena worked. Ethan felt like shit. Her best friend had went out and gotten her items for her apartment while she went out on a date, leaving her kid in a new place for the first time.

Ethan made her way to her bedroom, taking a step inside (and the crying got worse). Her bedroom was decorated completely. She didn’t even want to see Roka’s, because she was sure Silena would’ve worked on and finished his room first. She closed her door and slumped against it, sliding down to her floor. She was such a mess. She needed to sleep. Well, she needed a lot of things but sleep sounded like the only realistic thing at the moment.

She crawled, too tired to even want to try and stand, over to her bed, but she didn’t quite make it and she instead decided to lay on the fluffy white rug Silena had gotten.

And so she slept.

Her dreams were always, always bad because of her recurring dream of Luke showing up and everything like that. But the more she figured out what was going on, the more she decided that dream was the worst. Not only was it involving Luke, it involved him _rejecting_ Roka. Not just her, she would eventually be fine if it were her, but _Roka_. There were just simple words, him saying, “I don’t want him,” that he would repeat and each time she heard it her heart would break.

At first she didn’t even know if it were a dream or not. But she woke up to the sound of someone moving around in her bedroom, startling herself because she didn’t know who it was. Glancing up at the person who had suddenly knelt beside her, she relaxed because it was just Silena, and that was just a dream, and Luke didn’t know about Roka -- but she was _certain_ he would love Roka just as much as she did.

“Ethan? Are you okay?” Silena asked, but how should she answer? There were too many ways to respond.

“Yes, I’m okay, I’m just… Where’s Roka?” Ethan asked, getting up from the floor where she was sleeping. Roka was her main priority, especially after she left him to go on a date. God, that sounded terrible.

“Roka’s in his room.” Silena sat down on the edge of the bed, glancing at the other girl and it was still weird being under the girl’s inspection. “Do you like the apartment so far? I couldn’t decide on what to get, and so I didn’t get much. We could go shopping today or tomorrow because I…” she sheepishly laughed, “because I might’ve forgotten the shower curtain. But I got food! Or, at least, some food.”

“This is too much,” the girl sighed, plopping down next to the other girl and pulling her into a hug. “You love me too much.”

“Mm. I don’t think that’s a thing. I don’t think you can love someone too much.”

Ethan hummed. “What about those obsessive people who kidnap other people?” It was quiet for a moment before she said, “but then again that isn’t really love, so who knows.”

“Speaking of love,” Silena grinned, “what happened last night? Did you tell him anything?” There was a bit of hesitation because no she didn’t, God, she _couldn’t_ , before she shook her head. The girl beside her gave out a little sigh.

“I mean, we acted like a couple throughout the night. We even kissed like, twice or something like that but I couldn’t just bring that up. I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to just bring it up because that’s five years worth of shit that he doesn’t know. Everything changed so much, though, I knew I shouldn’t have followed him to the hotel.” The black-haired girl shook her head, adding onto the fact that it was probably a bad idea because she wanted to go _back_. She wanted to see him again but she wanted to see Roka and -- fuck, why did everything have to be complicated? “But, I didn’t tell him anything about Roka but I know I should soon, because I feel like he’s going to find out soon.”

“Well, who knows what’ll happen now.” She stood up, taking the girl’s hand. “But let’s go see your boy now, and we’ll worry about that when it comes.” Ethan giggled a bit and followed her out of the room, going into the little boy’s room with a smile on her face. The room was decorated with his stuff, most of his toys out of his toybox and on the floor. That was how she expected it would be like, because he was usually messy with choosing his toys. His favorite was the red dinosaur, though, he had it with him at all times because he loved it so much, and so it was usually hard for Ethan to wash it since he was attached to it.

“Momma!” Roka called, quick to spring up from his floor and run over to her. “Didja see what Auntie did?” He laughed and clapped, eventually getting out of the hug to run out of the room with his toy dinosaur. Ethan answered his question, assuming that he was talking about the decorating, and chased him into the living room before plopping down on the couch, pulling him with her. “She even set up my castle for Red to play in!”

“I see it in that corner over there, it’s nice!” Ethan said enthusiastically and Silena took a seat next to her, eyeing her over. She didn’t like being under inspection like that, like she always was, but it was her and so she had to get over it. She was going to have that feeling the rest of her life, probably. Silena usually does that because she’s more of a people person and wanted to make sure everything was okay. Ethan, on the other hand, wasn’t really a people person. She was selective in who she chose as her friends, but other than that, there wasn’t really much to that. Roka giggled and ran off to go play with the castle in the corner with Red again, and she caught a glance of Silena looking at her, thus proving she was under her gaze.

“What’s wrong?” Silena asked quietly, finally asking the younger girl since she knew that there was something off. Ethan didn’t even really know what was off, she just knew that she was upset and she missed him. She actually missed Luke. Maybe that was what was wrong. Or maybe it was that dream.

“I just had a bad dream, that’s all,” Ethan admitted out loud, making sure to keep her voice even. If Silena knew what the dream was about, she didn’t say anything. She was quiet for a moment before suddenly humming as she got up and moved around the room. Silena was never one to pace around a room, but there she was, moving around without speaking. It made Ethan feel a little worse. “And I miss him, but you know that.”

“Ethan, I think you should tell him,” she said before wandering off into the kitchen, probably to get something to drink.

“What? And have him hate me for keeping that from him?” Ethan snapped, turning around to face the other girl. “I want to tell him, but I can’t whenever he’s leaving again after the holidays. Our date was bad enough, him being late and all and then my hormones acting out.” There was a bit of a pause before she paled, remembering the words that had been said between them that morning. “I asked him to come over tomorrow night. He asked me if we could do that date thing again and I told him tomorrow night, Silena, I’m such an idiot!”

The girl came back from the kitchen with a glass full of water, which she handed to the other. Ethan took it, even if she didn’t want it. Silena wrapped an arm around her shoulder, grinning a bit at her. “You aren’t an idiot,” she said, squeezing her shoulder, “you’re just in love, that’s all.”

“I can’t decide which is worse,” she retorted, ignoring Silena’s complaints.

 

* * *

 

Ethan’s date with Luke came by too quickly. Yesterday, she and Silena had gone out with Roka to shop for her apartment, finally being able to make it her own. She even got Roka a little present to hopefully make up for the fact that she was gone on the first day of him going to a new place and for the fact that he was going to be going to Auntie’s again for tonight. Leaving him was hard again, holding him close to him before Silena took his hand and led him out of the apartment.

The girl sighed, leaning up against the door after closing it. She was an idiot for inviting Luke over, and she felt bad that Roka had to go with Silena again so Luke wouldn’t know about him -- just yet, at least. She was planning on telling him _eventually_ , somehow, but she figured tonight wouldn’t be the best time. Or, maybe it was, but she just couldn’t bring herself to _say_ anything. How was she supposed to say anything to him at all?

She put away Roka’s castle Silena had set up and after cleaning up the rest of his toys too, she put them in his room, locking the door and keeping the key on the top of the door. It was a little suspicious, really, locking a door -- but what else was she supposed to do? After that was done, she got ready on her own, simply putting on Luke’s sweatshirt and some leggings just so that she was comfortable (well, as comfortable as she could be anyway) while he was around. She did put makeup on, though, taking a selfie for Silena to see it. She put it on her Instagram, because she knew the girl would also want to see a ‘makeup of the day’ even if she were just wearing a sweatshirt and leggings. She saw that she had a DM from Luke, asking what time was okay to come over and for her address, and she quickly typed out her address and a message of **_asap_** , because she couldn’t wait any longer otherwise her nerves were going to kill her. She locked her phone and sat on the rug in her living room, quickly tying her hair back into a long braid, not really wanting to do much with her hair because she wouldn’t be doing much anyway. Not that she cared, really, but it was still a self-conscious thing.

Ethan waited on her floor, keeping herself distracted by texting Silena and calling her, pouring her feelings out before she had time to hold them inside. She told the girl she was nervous, she was very, _very_ nervous, but the other girl simply told her it was normal and she shouldn’t worry because Luke already liked her. Hearing that didn’t really make her feel any better, but she still took a deep breath and waited for the blond to arrive.

Around eight thirty PM, Ethan was about to fall asleep whenever she heard the doorbell ring. She made her way to the door after getting up off the floor, her hands shaking. Why was she so nervous? It was Luke, for God’s sake, and she wasn’t even telling him anything about their son. The most that could happen is he could see a picture frame of her and Roka, which -- shit, did she seriously forget to take those down? Oh, oh no.

She opened the door, deciding on a lie that she could use to cover up Roka for right now, and saw Luke standing there. But instead of seeing a lopsided grin from him like normally, there was just a frown on his face. Oh.

“H-Hi,” she said nervously, trying to keep her voice even as she talked. She stepped aside so that he could toe off his shoes (he still somehow knew that was a pet peeve of hers) before walking inside, setting his shoes by the door and took a seat on the couch. She closed the door and turned around, her eyebrows furrowing together. “What’s wrong?” she asked, as if she had done something wrong, or maybe she had seen pictures of their child on her Instagram, or maybe he could even see pictures of them now or something --

Oh no. She had effectively hid Roka’s things in his room, so it wasn’t like that was the problem, but she forgot about the photographs. He was bound to know and she was bound to tell him. She didn’t know why she couldn’t just _tell him_ instead of hiding it, but something about it made her keep her mouth shut until the last possible moment. She can just say Roka is a kid that Silena and her babysit sometimes, for now. “My father was pissing me off,” the blond grumbled and immediately Ethan relaxed, taking a seat beside him on the couch. If he knew anything about Roka, he still hadn’t mentioned it but it was driving her mad. She wanted him to know, wanted him to find out for himself so she wouldn’t have to tell him but even then that was still as bad as her telling him. Hiding Roka for five years? She shouldn’t have done that, but there she was.

“What was he doing?” she asked, trying to get her mind off the fact that she had consecutively hid her son from his _father_ for _five years_. It was probably one of the worst things she could do, and that was coming from Nemesis Nakamura’s daughter. Luke didn’t answer her question, instead he just shook his head and glanced over at her. She hummed, sitting a bit closer to him. She could see past him a picture of Roka on a little table behind him, and guilt washed over her.

 _You’re a coward_.

He kept his eyes on hers, smiling a bit and saying, “you’re wearing my sweatshirt.”

She was glad he changed the topic. Ethan grinned a bit and played with the strings of his hoodie, pretending like she didn’t just feel like a pitiful school girl, blushing around her crush. Yeah, it was his hoodie. Yes, she was wearing it, and she’s worn it before, and he’s realized it before but _why_ was she just now blushing about it?

He still had his eyes on her, and it wasn’t until he was close enough to her lips for her to realize what he was about to do. “So!” she exclaimed, standing up and heading toward the kitchen, “what do you want for dinner?” She heard him laughing a bit, heard him stepping closer to her and she looked a little shocked whenever he grabbed ahold of one of her hands, but eventually he turned her around so that they could be face to face, chest to chest. He started to sway a little bit, holding her hand with his left and his right hand was wrapped around her waist. They were dancing and swaying a bit to some unknown slow song and she laughed, going along with him shamelessly while joking, saying, “oh, don’t you pull your romance novel stuff on me.”

He laughed a bit, muttering out something along the lines of, “all the romance novel stuff I could do to you, you’d deflect so easily. This, though, this is just me, dancing with you.” He fell silent after a moment and Ethan rested her head on his chest, listening to his beating heart. He kept her close to him, swaying back and forth with her in harmony of a rhythm. She didn’t say anything either, she didn’t want to ruin the moment. She could’ve, honestly, it would’ve been so easy, but that was tiring and she didn’t want to. She wanted to dance with him, even if they were dancing with no music in the middle of her kitchen.

Eventually, she hummed and said, “I still wouldn’t take you as the type of guy to dance with a girl in a kitchen with no music.”

Luke let out a little laugh, effectively gaining her attention. He grinned down at her with a little lopsided smile. They paused after a moment, looking at each other for one single moment before lips were pressed up against each other’s. Ethan didn’t really know who started the kiss, maybe they had met in the middle, but it didn’t matter because both of them continued. The girl wrapped her arms around Luke’s neck, pressing closer to him because for some reason, _finally_ , now was the time whenever they could admit to each other that they missed one another. Now was the time they could fucking admit that they still loved each other, even though Luke did stupid shit and Ethan just didn’t know how to tell the man that they had a child together.

One kiss became two kisses, which then became many more kisses until Ethan pulled away with a satisfied hum, finally getting the mindset in that they need to eat. “Takeout?” she asked, because she didn’t feel like cooking. Luke laughed, nodding his head and giving her one more kiss before he moved to the counter, sitting on it while she called.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed it! ♡✧


End file.
